Astrud Burgess has arguably one of the best financial services marketing jobs as CMO of the ANZ bank and she still gets to live in Auckland, New Zealand.
Named Effective Marketer of the Year at this year's Aotearoa Effie Awards, she describes herself as a puppy with two tails -- twice as excited.
“What I love about marketing of financial services is people have a really complex relationship with money,” she told AdNews.
“I remember going to my first focus group and somebody talked about freezing their credit card and a big block of ice so that they had to wait for it to melt before they went shopping.
“That wouldn't work now but it's a demonstration of how we feel about money.
“I think one of the really interesting things for us is that people aren't in market that often.
“In Australia, 17% of people buy a financial service in any one year and switching between banks is relatively low.
“And so what I believe that means -- I don't always win this argument -- is that brand becomes much more important because a lot of the time you're talking to an audience who isn't a market.
“And then very rarely you are and then you need to have a sales process. But you need to be on the shopping list.”
She sees branding with a lot more benefits than just winning customers.
“That's obviously critical but it’s important to shareholders, to staff, to community license, which you know, given that banks profits, because of the amount of capital invested in them, are perceived to be large is really important,” she says
“And you don't want customers to be ashamed when they take out your card or talk about their bank. So it is important to keep them but it's a growth game and so you need a strong brand to win.”
And in the current uncertain economic climate, she says it’s important to hold your nerve, to keep marketing that brand.
She says most marketers will agree that those who keep up the marketing budget will come out the other side in better shape.
“The problem is when you're in a crisis, and people are trying to find a way to save money within an organisation, you have to be really convincing,” she says.
How to convince the board of directors and the shareholders to keep spending?
“It's a big question … the answer, I think, is slowly … using metrics on reputation, brand and the correlation with customer acquisition over time.
“I always say that we (marketing) make the cream on the top. It's very good cream. So it's worth what we paid for.”
She says a marketing team has to be able to win budget to do their job.
“You have to be known as a team that delivers value, otherwise, you won't be sustainable through these cycles,” she says.
“You have to be able to prove out the value of what you do. And you need to be able to deliver work into market at pace and build strong relationships.
“You have to hold your strategy consistently over time. Brands move 1% maybe if you're lucky, depending on the market, and that's a courageous game to play with quite large chunks of money.”
She was appointed in July this year, replacing Sweta Mehra who was appointed managing director, Australia Everyday Banking. She got to keep her responsibilities leading Data, Marketing & Customer Experience in New Zealand.
The thing that she found the most interesting was how different the markets, Australia and New Zealand, behave.
“It's really interesting to be in two markets at the same time, with a deep knowledge of one and not such of the other,” she says.
“In New Zealand with 30% market share and number one in brand consideration, you're playing a quite different game to here in Australia.
“And then here in Australia we've got ANZ Plus, which is such an exciting prop to bring to market.
Marketing comes down to how well a story is told.
“Marketers are empathetic,” she says.
Walk in your customer’s shoes, tell a good story beautifully.
She points to an ANZ bank commercial, via TBWA New Zealand, about the son of an immigrant who grows up to be a Black cap, a member of the NZ cricket team.
“We made this beautiful advertisement of an Indian father whose son became a black cap,” she says.
“It drove brand, it drove staff engagement, cricket fan engagement. They're not easy to get those perfect stories
“And that's why brands are important because you can't talk to everyone with a rate driven credit card.”
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