In the world of financial services, creating memorable marketing often means thinking outside the box. One great example of this is PensionBee and Brentford Football Club. This partnership shows how partnering with a trusted brand that’s at the heart of the community can get you noticed and build relationships with your target audience.
PensionBee & Brentford Football Club: A Lesson in Partnership
PensionBee, a forward-thinking fintech, wanted to make pensions more relatable and have a brand that resonated with people. It found this in Brentford Football Club. Football has a passionate fan base and is a universal language so PensionBee could connect with its target audience on an emotional level.
This partnership wasn’t about slapping logos on the stadium but engaging with the fans on a deeper level. PensionBee’s branding was on the shirts, digital screens and social content, so it became a visible and trusted name to a wider, often younger, audience. PensionBee used Brentford’s community ethos to humanise its own mission and resonate with fans on topics like financial security and planning for the future.
For businesses looking to build long-term trust, this partnership is a great example of how partnering with an authentic, loved brand can boost your own credibility. By tapping into the emotion and loyalty fans have for their football club, PensionBee was able to make pensions – a dry subject – relatable.
In our podcast, The Growth Engine, Jasper Marten from PensionBee explained what it takes for a brand partnership to work: “It’s not just about visibility; it’s about connecting with your audience in ways that resonate deeply. You need to find partners who share your values and create experiences that are relevant and meaningful.”
Hub’s Vanguard Tough Mudder Campaign: When Finance Meets the Ultimate Challenge
While PensionBee went for football, Vanguard went in a completely different direction to get its audience energised. Enter the Tough Mudder Challenge. In a marriage of finance and extreme sport, Vanguard’s partnership with the world’s toughest obstacle course aimed to reframe how people thought about their ‘active management’ services.
In the world of finance, Vanguard is known for its index funds, but its active management services were under the radar. Tough Mudder provided the perfect opportunity to flip this narrative, as it embodied the ‘active’ nature of Vanguard’s investment philosophy.
Our Role at Hub: The Hero Campaign Advert
At Hub, we were briefed to bring this to life with a hero campaign advert. Our task was clear: create high-energy, engaging content that would generate buzz, build excitement around the event and reinforce the ‘active’ message. The target was for financial professionals to sign up and get the wider UK financial sector excited.
We ran the hero advert across social channels and email marketing campaigns to get it in front of the key players in the industry. This was the anchor for the campaign, designed to drive sign-ups and build excitement for the event.
Nicola Constantinou, Vanguard’s UK Channel Marketing Manager, told us in The Growth Engine podcast: “We wanted something that was creatively disruptive, a campaign that would cut through the noise and make us stand out. The creative Hub produced gave us a great platform to build the rest of the campaign off the back of, particularly the main hero advert which was key in driving the social engagement and momentum.”
Results
The results? Over 1,000 people from the UK financial industry took part in the Tough Mudder challenge, from small advisory firms to the biggest players in the sector. It wasn’t just about mud, sweat and teamwork; it was an opportunity for Vanguard to position itself as a leader in active management and build relationships with its B2B audience.
We also created a series of training videos that kept the momentum going in the run up to the event. These videos prepared participants for the physical challenge but also reinforced the ‘active’ message, turning the event into a multi-touchpoint campaign that had a lasting impact on the industry.
Conclusion: The Power of Bold Partnerships
Whether it’s PensionBee partnering with a football club or Vanguard tackling an obstacle course, the message is clear: bold, well-aligned partnerships can lift your brand, engage your audience and build trust in new and exciting ways.
At Hub, we’ve seen first-hand how creative thinking and bold collaborations can make an industry impact and we’re chuffed to have been part of Vanguard’s active journey.
If you’re looking to disrupt your industry, think about where your brand can make an emotional connection – whether it’s on the pitch or in the mud.
Listen to The Growth Engine episodes with Jaspar from Pension Bee and Nicola from Vanguard.
Read or watch the Vanguard Tough Mudder Case Study
