As a relatively new entrant in the Australian B2C landscape, Vanguard Investments is planning to stay the course. The brand’s chief marketing officer, Louise Eyres, shares her guidance for marketers looking to make their mark.
“Vanguard founder Jack Bogle instilled an ethos of staying the course. The investment philosophy is don't jump in and out of markets. It's about time in-market, not timing the market. And that philosophy is absolutely applicable to growing brands just like an investment portfolio,” says Louise Eyres, Chief Marketing Officer, Vanguard Investments Australia.
A relatively new brand in the Australian B2C market, Vanguard has 26 years of local B2B marketing experience that it can turn to as it looks to promote its wider portfolio beyond financial advisers, partners, and institutional banks.
The brand is in it for the long haul and has a range of products and services it is marketing.
“The exciting thing about where Vanguard is right now is that we're buying media across our full portfolio,” explains Eyres.
Vanguard’s offerings include superannuation, personal investment and financial advice. And now is the time for Vanguard to make its mark. “We're certainly seeing more and more Australians lean in and take active control over their wealth and their wealth decisions,” says Eyres.
As a financial institution, trust is a key tenet for the brand’s marketing efforts.
“Brand safety and brand trust are critical when you're in financial services,” says Eyres. “We take our brand safety and brand integrity very seriously. We’re very conscious of where we place our brand.”
To that end, a sizeable portion of the brand’s advertising spend is allocated to news.
“I see Total News as being that trusted foundation from which we build our marketing strategy because it can adapt to our portfolio. It can also adapt to where in the funnel our objectives are,” says Eyres.
While the news context “gives that trust and integrity” the brand needs, it also provides the scope to work across all the offerings in the Vanguard portfolio regardless of their individual life cycles.
“That whole adage of right message at the right time in the right channel, I'm conscious of that both as a marketer and as a consumer of news,” she says.
Targeting diverse audiences
With the combination of B2B and B2C brands, Vanguard is appealing to a diverse audience and, in doing so, aims to align with its mission: to take a stand for all investors, to treat them fairly, and give them the best chance of investment success. That means advertising placement needs to be considered carefully based on the specific product or service. But Eyres says this is achievable when working with news media.
“News allows us that platform to connect with all Australians and help them achieve investment success. The beauty of the Total News offering is that we can monitor that all the way through from awareness to the final completion of the joining journey. We can actually see the impact that news has made on our marketing strategy,” she says.
Entering the B2C space, building awareness with consumers was the initial goal and Vanguard is seeing great results in this department. Now that consumers are becoming familiar with the brand, the next step is to get them to take action.
“We're looking at consideration and conversion. News gives us that. We can see how that content is driving Australian investors and members through to explore and learn more about the Vanguard offer, and then take that next step to become one of our clients or members,” she says.
Forging partnerships
Beyond spots and dots, Vanguard has built awareness, consideration and conversion through news partnerships that span the full gamut of Total News from print to digital and everything in between.
“We're really looking at how we grow our brand, our brand integrity and brand trust, through news advertising. And we're seeing it more in strategic partnerships. We’re looking at how we partner with news platforms to really deliver that whole of portfolio connection,” says Eyres.
And the results have been “significant” with Eyres noting the relationship far exceeded the return on investment expected.
“It really built a content story of trust, integrity and credibility that we would not have been able to achieve if we hadn't had that partnership,” she says.
A constant evolution
As the economic landscape gears up for another challenging period, Eyres stresses that marketers need to be able to adapt.
“Marketers must keep evolving and adjusting our discipline. The biggest risk I see for marketers is that we don't keep pace with the change in media,” she says.
Eyres encourages her peers to refamiliarize themselves with all media channels including news.
“News advertising has changed considerably in the last five years. It is relevant today and will continue to be because it has evolved,” she said.
This evolution is part of the attraction for Vanguard. With the investment landscape also changing from moment to moment, there is a clear alignment.
“Because news is 24/7, it's constantly evolving. And that's where it really becomes that key platform for Vanguard to be present as we grow our business in Australia,” she says.
To find out more about how Vanguard is using Total News visit this link.
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