She's a former entrepreneur and confectionery trailblazer lauded for her gourmet sweets business, infusing her strategic approach with an entrepreneurial spirit.

Laura brings a wealth of knowledge in steering M and G's marketing to drive growth and innovation. Thank you for joining us today.

Pleasure.

Could we kick off by you giving us a bit of a background to your role at M and G and what what it what it is that you do there?

Sure. So I am responsible for the global marketing activities for the asset management part of M and G and have been M and G on and off for about twenty years now, which is quite scary.

And I'm responsible for channel marketing activities, which includes I guess support for events, collateral, advertising, brand in terms of the activation for the MG Investments brand, sort of client intelligence of understanding what the clients require of us. And we also have an investment marketing team who do some written content and things like that. So a wide range.

Right. Right. And I I had a look at your LinkedIn profile before before we we met, as you'd expect. And I I I realized that you you didn't start in marketing. You've actually got a a very, very strong background in in business strategy, which you've which you've worked at majority of the time in M and G. So can you talk to me about that and why it was that you decided to sort of jump over the fence so to speak?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, suppose I've had kind of two sort of jumps from strategy to marketing within my career at M and G actually. Started in a kind of grad scheme at M and G and ended up doing strategic planning for the asset management of wholesale business. And then during that time, there became opportunities to sort of take on more of the investment marketing, so the content events piece.

And I had some perspective on how we could do how we could do that. I had some ideas and was also quite keen to sort of take more ownership. So that was back in, I think, two thousand and seven or so. Right. Long time ago. Oh my god.

And then more recently when I returned to M and G back in twenty eighteen, I came back in to sort of look at the asset management business strategy, which is effectively kind of almost like an internal consultancy team. So working with the leadership team to develop and articulate the asset management business strategy, doing internal projects, working with finance on the business planning and things like that.

And again, during that process, mean, it's a really great role. You get to know everything that's going on in the business. You're sort of in the room, which is always a really good thing to be involved in. But increasingly I was kind of ready to get more involved and have more responsibility for actually delivery. So not just recommending what we needed to do, but actually being responsible for doing it.

Right.

That was where the sort of my interest came and there was a restructure in the marketing team going on, taking it from a central function into the asset management business.

So I sort of made my pitch at that stage to say, please, can I have a go?

It's unusual that route because I mean, lot of the times within marketing, when you're reading about marketing, one of the most common kind of bugbears is that there's not enough strategy in marketing and marketers can be accused of being too tactical.

So to come the other way, you must have quite a a unique perspective within running a marketing basically replaying my interview for me.

But no. But yeah. I think I don't know if that is the case. I think sometimes marketing teams go in and get a bad rep for that. But certainly with the way that I've approached it is very much understanding kind of what does the business want to do and then what does marketing need to do to support that. Yeah. So you start with the business requirement and then go to what the teams need to do to help with that rather than, you know, sort of an isolated disconnected marketing function, which I guess is a risk, but yes, certainly would bring that approach.

Having that approach, are you in in discussions with the the the senior team?

I think it helps with credibility with both the sales teams and with the kind of senior leadership team because also I've come from a different angle in terms of observing and understanding the sort of marketing activity and what it needs to do to help support the growth. Yeah. And then understanding kind of what the important metrics are from a business perspective to help it sometimes helps with kind of, I guess, pitching what we need in terms of budgets or why we're doing what we're doing.

Can you expand on that about to to explain how you would go about having that discussion with the senior team, talking about the specific metrics that the business I mean, I guess it's thinking about what's important for them, which is, you know, revenue growth ultimately.

And then understanding what their priorities are to deliver that, whether that be channel expansion, particular regions or a particular investment capability that we need to grow. And then knowing that, working out how the things we want to do support that. So, and I suppose some of that is across how we, you know, we would talk about some product marketing, channel marketing, so specific commercial objectives that we need to be achieved. But then there's also the work that we need to do from a brand point of view, which I guess is often the harder thing to get everyone to understand why you need to do it.

And I think that's been something I've been quite focused on this year is to really try and articulate why we're trying to do both, not just So you're, you've been in the, in your role now, just just under a year?

Yes. So I took it on sort of on interim basis this time last year and then formally in in February.

When you came in, what was your what's on your to do list for for for the year?

What's been really brilliant about the year is kind of seeing what's already in the tea like the people that are in the team and listening to them. So a lot of it was just about understanding what they what ideas they had and what we wanted to do. Some of it was about foundations, so we kind of just had a look at sort of the support model we had with agency relationships and things like that.

So we did a bit of the, you know, sort of the usual sort of A of housekeeping.

You know, housekeeping, get the foundations in place. There's been a bit of looking at digital and kind of where we are from that perspective, which is we've got lots of the tools, but not necessarily using to the full extent, which I think is probably quite a common feature in the marketing space and asset management.

Yeah.

We see a lot of hear about a lot of that more in the in the kind of, I guess, the the martech space.

Yeah. Yeah.

Is is that what you're referring So we've got we, you know, we're lucky we've got lots of the, you know, different tools, but we definitely got opportunities to make more of them Yeah.

Which is a good place to be. We don't have to make the case to go and buy them. No. We can definitely make more of them.

Yeah. As I've we've met met a few people on this podcast that are in different stages. They're either getting in their martech stack or or struggling in the sense of we've got all this, but once it's in, and it's it can be such a a mission to get the right equipment in, and then what do you do with it once it's in? So it's so, yeah, it sounds like you're in that second part.

Definitely. I mean, kind of ties back in, I guess, to that kind of point where everyone's trying to demonstrate the value of marketing and some of that you do at the front end, which is saying this is the case for giving us some investment and some of it is showing you gave us that investment, this is the return on that. Yeah.

And obviously some of those tools in the Martech space really help you with that latter Yes.

Point. I do wanna dive into that a a little bit more, but before we move on, I wanna talk about your your your role because you've you've you were in energy, you took a break Yeah. And and you've come back. And you've got an unusual story about when you when you when you took that break. Yeah. Do you want can you expand on that?

Yes. I I had three children and decided at that stage, was kinda like, right. I think I need a bit of time. Spent some time with them and then did that, but also then started a business.

So I set up a confectionery nice and peaceful.

Yeah. Exactly. Think it was a bit slightly random decision making to be honest. But I, yes, set up a confectionery business making sweets. Right. Sort of gourmet sweets for grown ups was the kind of pitch which was like caramels and sherbet dib dabs and kind of all just with elevated flavors and that kind of thing. Honestly, my children have never forgiven me.

The fact I don't still do this is a I can imagine.

You know, like what do you do? You used to do this and now you do that.

But Gone from ***** Wong to Oh, Well, exactly.

I'm not sure it was ever quite that but it was definitely probably more exciting than marketing and asset management.

Not that that's not exciting, but certainly for if you're twelve, it's not quite a So, yeah.

So I mean, was everything really from, you know, kind of product development and working on that to getting involved in a launch.

And yeah, was it was really interesting, enjoyable, had some really good highlights, had some lowlights in It was phenomenally successful. You were getting Well, I mean, think, yeah, so some bits were really successful, it?

We ended up in some really high profile shops, but did we ever make any profit? No. So yes, lessons in that process definitely. Yeah.

It was, I mean the range of stores I saw that you were stocked in was enormously impressive. Yeah. But it's yeah.

In some ways, sort of too successful too quickly as in it got to the point where the the manufacturing couldn't keep up with the demand.

Right.

And that meant that I had a sort of scale problem more quickly than I might have expected. Yeah. And when, you know, I was doing sort of three trying to do three days a week because of the children, and then that was sort of eating into it when you have to sort of wrap sweets and package them and do all of that kind of stuff. So, yes.

So that eventually that you've you've kind of let It got to a point where that I tried to find a factory, so I was like kind of like, alright, had caught we can't.

You know, my husband was coming home from work and having to wrap sweets in the evening. So got somewhere where it just wasn't sustainable and it wasn't fun. No. So the bit that I really enjoyed was the sales marketing, a little bit, which I guess is reassuring. Yes. But the sort of factory delivery of it was not what I enjoyed as much.

So it was trying to, I tried to find an outsource option, try and find a factory partner, I just couldn't find anyone to make it at a price that would, that was cheaper than how I could do it with a couple of people at Was this pre Brexit?

Presumably that challenge would have got harder.

Yes. Was. Yes. It was.

So I did have it had even an it had, you know, a Dutch Yeah.

Department store on the on the list.

But, that would become quite impossible, I think.

Yeah. Yeah. I've got I've got a few friends that have one one's a tea manufacturer and ended up having to move a factory over to Europe because of, yeah, the red Yeah.

Exporting there as well, it's hard, right?

Yes. But anyway, so that that you passed from from the confectionery business and back to M and G. Yep.

And I I'm intrigued to to see from from the lessons that you've learned from running your own business.

Did you were you able to bring any of that wisdom into your into your new role?

I think the first thing it did was kind of it was a sort of attitude change kind of coming out from the corporate world and kind of being quite, you know, really enjoyed my job by, you know, kind of attached yourself to kind of what you're doing. I think that disconnect happened during that time where I was out from the work and also having to close a business and kind of accept that that's not failure of you as a person, it's a different Yeah.

So that I think that was has honestly been quite healthy Yes.

In my return to the corporate world as in it just gives me some distance in kind of understanding where what what really makes a difference.

Yes.

Then in terms of the marketing side, think it just gave I I had to do everything. So I was my social media manager, I was my packaging designer.

Right.

I was yeah. All of it. So really really fun, really interesting, but getting quite on and deep.

Deep learning curve, I imagine.

Deep learning curve, definitely.

Maybe quite fluent in social media at the time. Yes.

And probably use it still a little bit too much as a risk, to be honest.

When you come back into the corporate role, because you don't I guess previously, you didn't you didn't have that knowledge on all of those different tactical elements of of marketing. So when you came in, was was that part of your interest in coming moving from strategy into marketing?

I think I'd always had lots of ideas from a marketing point of view and that one the challenges in marketing is everyone's got an opinion on it. Yeah. I suppose that isn't unique, but had, you know, some create some ideas that things I thought would be good from a marketing point of view. And yeah, I think it did. It has it has has occasional influence, think, just in terms of some of the things I I consider.

So let's move again. You've you've you've you're back in M and G. You've made the transition from strategy Yes. Into into into marketing.

I'm I'm interested to to explore how you may go your approach may be may be unique in the in what you bring from strategic planning and insight into understanding what the business is focused on and how you start executing that as a as a as a marketing marketing plan. Is there anything you can tell us about that?

I mean, I don't know if it's unique, so I would certainly wouldn't wouldn't assume that. But I think where I start, I guess, is looking at the plan and the conversations with sales on, you know, where their priorities sit. And then also because I'm not a marketer by kind of background, I've spent a bit of time, I guess, reading marketing literature, listening to podcasts, all that kind of thing just to really educate myself. So that I understand kind of what the science tells you, you know, being in the marketing, sorry, in the strategic planning side, you get a real focus on data and using that as a way to make your case. So I think that has been a focus as well is looking at that.

Where were those resources? What were those resources?

Mean, it's definitely started from a sort of a podcast and then going into those things after that. So I suppose key things would be, I mean, the uncensored CMO is a great a great podcast that has a good, not as good as this one.

You know Especially this very Especially this episode.

But really, you know, has really good insight into, you know, of the long and the short of it, if they feel, you know. Yeah. And other sort of Ehrenberg Bass and then the CMO scorecard that LinkedIn have recently produced. So B2B Institute at LinkedIn, think is really helpful.

Yeah. So it's just elements like that. I mean, Mark Ritzan can't go unmentioned I suppose in these things as well. So lots of interesting and almost distilled information that's probably available much more easily now than it may have been a few years ago too, which is great.

Often you can get you can obviously overread these things and obsess with all of those. Yeah. But it's just taking elements of that and saying, well, how does that help us?

Interesting. So you you talked a little bit about the guess, operational execution, sales tactics versus brand building very much in that area of long and the short. So how how do you then go about building out that knowledge and then start executing on what the business is is looking for?

And I guess the lesson in all those ones is is the both point, isn't it? Yeah. The and and the long and the short of it that's the that's the key. And I suppose that's the bit that we've been trying to do as a team, which is challenging from a capacity point of view, always trying to kind of do these things simultaneously.

But where so we've really tried to look at it on those two elements. We could try and work with sales. That's where the channel marketing teams come into their own. They've got those relationships with local sales teams, understand their priorities and try and execute as part of that sales team.

Yeah. And then you've got kind of brand side where we're really looking at what do we want to be known for, how do we best activate and deliver that, do we have any money to do so? Yeah. Those kind of big questions really.

The relationship between sales and marketing, has always been strong at M and G?

Is it I mean, it's think, yes, definitely at the country level, I think that's always worked really, really well and I think you get, because they're generally sort of almost smaller teams sitting in market, you often get that really really strong entrepreneurial sense of a sense of a team.

I think I think it varies, it ebbs and flows, right? When everything's going well, one team wants to take the credit. When everything's going, you know, it's more challenging, then it might might be more difficult, but yeah.

It's something that I've been working within asset management marketing now, think for for probably ten years or so.

And I I've I've heard that originally when I started sales and marketing were were very, very separate teams, then there's there's needs there seems to be this coming together of recognizing, working together, but now certain organisations are starting to merge them under under one department, and changing name from distribution to Client group.

Yeah.

So it there seems to be we seem to be midway in this evolution, and I just wondered where M and G were within that I think historically it's always been really very strong in terms of that partnership, we've always seen quite a strong alignment between the two.

Right.

But in terms of the sort of structural piece, we're absolutely under that distribution team. We haven't called it a client group, but it's distribution product and marketing is all under one.

Right. Right. Okay. And the the team that you've a pretty large team. I know not as large as some asset managers, but I think you said there's about eighty that sit within marketing. How's that structured out that?

So we have a European and Asia channel marketing teams. So two different teams based locally.

So there are different different teams within different locations within each of those teams. And then we have within London hub, we've got an investment marketing team that includes product marketing, product reporting, presentations, sort of pitch decks and so on.

We have also within that a kind of thought leadership writing teams, all those written content comes from there.

There is an events team.

Right. And kind of provide that specialism in terms of delivery and strategy from an events point of view. And then I also have a marketing strategic planning team, which kind of I sort of introduced this year, I guess, with my with my background. Yeah. Yeah. Kind thinking really I needed help with change and also the planning and creating some consistency.

And how how do do do they almost work on the different geographic regions that you focus them in on or could it be They will generally work sort of across really.

So we might be working on sort of the institutional plan or we might be kind of going, right, we as a team we're missing this tool or we need to work out how we better make better use of the marketing tech stack. So there'll be different projects, different elements that they're working, but they're they're working with the the team heads, but really just to help facilitate that because it's quite hard to do when you're trying to do it at side of your desk.

And is that that department you set up and so did you were those individuals already in place?

They were. They were in the building, but it was a re kind of focus of what they were doing.

But are you happy to talk about that?

Yeah.

So how many people are in that in that?

Just two.

Okay. Yeah. And what, are they marketers by trade or they more?

Yes, they're marketers by trade.

Okay, okay. Yeah, that's interesting, I haven't heard of that in a unit, which is surprising really.

Which I mean, much as also kind of helping me, but you know, you have so many demands in terms of kind of what's the plan here, what's the plan here and all of that kind of thing. It's actually just providing that quality Yeah. In that articulation as well that really helps. And and obviously there's, you know, fun and games around controls, compliance, risk, so on that also requires some focus.

So I would say they're also covering that as well within their Yeah.

Their remit. Which presumably gives you a bit more headspace because you're not, otherwise, you'd be delivering all of those.

Yeah. Absolutely. It's, you know, hugely beneficial from that point of view. It means I can go and be incredibly annoying about having But that's fine. Ideas, you know, you know, in terms of the team and go, what about this?

But, yeah, it does it does give a bit of that space, which is a good and bad thing, I think, depending on who you When you've come in, you're you're setting up this department.

You're you're pretty much a year in place now. How do you start measuring the impact of your your your team, and how do you show that you're contributing to to sales?

So I guess it's across the two kind of areas. So from a brand point of view, we've got brand sort of KPIs that we're looking to hit, which we use sort of external brand research to help us with Broadridge and NMG are kind of two surveys that we use. And then that would, so that would be the primary KPI that we would use to measure how we're doing. Using things like the fund buyer fifty as our kind of end of year Okay. Objective.

And then from a sort of commercial perspective, it depends on the campaign. I suppose it depends on what we're trying to do. So it might be market share with a particular asset class. Are we helping to grow that?

It might be brand awareness metrics within that asset class or product. It might be pure sales. It might be feedback. It's a combination of the two as well as, I guess, specific KPIs around, you know, campaign activity, whether that's engagement or visits or whatever it might.

You you mentioned about tracking the the the brand and tracking brand's performance. What what what are you currently doing to to enhance the the the brand visibility in in the market?

So we're doing we have in in the last few months doing a bit more sort of out of home activity in certain markets, doing some sort of targeted campaigns in those both at a sort of account based marketing level and also overalls. So depending on the market, we've been trying a few things there. And then we've also been trying out a few things to make us a little bit more visible given, you know, we want to make our budgets work as effectively as possible. So trying few other things from a creative point of view.

Okay.

We've launched a new magazine called Ampersand, is a kind of combining thought leadership, but also in a kind of highly designed way Is it looking for graphic.

It looks beautiful. I had something Yes.

I mean, all done internally, like, really apart from the comic book, which was we used a sort of specific artist for that. But, yeah, just trying to approach things in a slightly different way, hopefully, to make people kind of makes it a bit more memorable.

Yeah. It's is is that purely is it purely digital?

No. So there's a we print Okay. Not thousands of copies, but for events. Yeah. So to hand out there, and that that's been really well received too, so just a kind of combination of things.

Yeah. I was super impressed by it.

I the the writing was The team the team Well, the writing was fabulous, but the design was absolutely stunning as And fun, think, I mean, I know that sort of you can't put a value on fun, but from a team perspective, the work on that I think has been really really enjoyable.

And obviously that helps when you're often dealing with potentially more dry things as well. So having a bit of that combination.

And how how regular is that? Is that?

It's gonna be half yearly Yeah.

At the moment. Yeah.

Think if unless we get credit crazy demand and we have to do it as a full time thing, but yeah, half yearly is the point.

Yeah. And what what what is is there measurements on that that you put into place?

That When we launched it, we were looking really for sort of client feedback because an anecdotal thing is something we will be looking for.

We've got sign ups, know, kind of people who are registering to, you know, receive information for future copies. That's been going quite well, think given our given expectations. Yeah. But, they're the main measures at this stage. I think we would ideally see it's contributing to kind of an overall brand Yeah. Perception, but that's obviously an entire you can't point specifically to Svanzan's role in that.

No. No. Okay. And you you you mentioned you're trying different things in in different regions.

Can you can you I suppose it depends on kind of how well we're known in different spaces.

So I mean, one example is so within Amazan, have a comic of, from our Bonvigilance team. Bonvigilance is our fixed income teams blog that's been running for over ten years now. You know, it's hugely, hugely successful.

And we sort of taken that, created these sort of comic book characters from the team, we've then used that in events.

So in the UK and Europe, we've used that as kind of a styling for events. We've kind of gone with a fully kind of pop art kind of concept. But in Asia, for example, we would do that quite differently. We're not known in lots of Asian markets. We're introducing ourselves. So we're taking quite a different approach there in terms of building our awareness. We'll save sort of bond vigilantes perhaps for a later date when they understand us and know us so that rather than presenting ourselves in that way.

Bond Bond vigilantes was one of the first references I heard about when I when I first started working in the in space.

Yeah.

And it was it was really fresh and new, and everyone was going crazy for the whole And, you know, the vision from the invest you know, came or the reason it's lasted so long and has so much credibility is it's come from the investment team.

So Jim Levis, who's the CIO of Fixed Income, his his idea. Yeah. And and that's why it still we're still doing it, but also why people still engage with it and it's got high quality Yeah. Kind of content.

It's almost because from a marketing perspective, we've create we've we're quite a light touch in that process rather than getting in the way. We try and just help it to happen, and then Well, that's an enormous success, isn't it, as a piece of content marketing in this space? It's it's probably, I would say, it's up there if if not the longest running It certainly was one of the first ones that came out to market.

Yeah. And probably, as you say, one of the longest running.

Yeah. And it's interesting to see that how it's evolved and Yeah.

Now into into comic book characters.

Exactly. Yeah. And that we might to do more frequently than six monthly. Yeah. Think that's been well received.

There's also a a launch video and in my notes, I've got Wes Anderson.

Can you Yes.

Okay. So this is slightly random idea that I had where we want to do something for the launch that what didn't feel like here's another thought leadership magazine from an asset manager that was slightly out of the ordinary. So we're trying to take inspiration, I guess, from whatever from a pop culture point of view is happening at the time of the latest edition launch. Yes. And I mean, I guess the options back in September was the Barbie movie and Wes Anderson. So Wes Anderson definitely felt the safest much as I would have been tempted.

But, you know, it's definitely the safest option from a sort of kind of brand point of view. And just an opportunity to create something just slightly fun and out of the ordinary. Yeah.

And the engagement on that social place is like the best performing there, you know, one we've had for you know, mean, definitely, internally as well as externally Yeah. Has created a few, you know, right smiles and Yeah.

And fun things. And we've had offers from within the business, loads of people want to be in the next one.

Oh, that's great.

So if anyone has any ideas for what that topic should be, like what the theme should be, that would be very helpful because it's a little bit stuck.

That's interesting. There's there seems to be a common theme that about having fun and whether that's internally for for your team and making sure that they're enjoying what they're doing, but also there seems to be this slight likeness of touch, which is really refreshing that you're not taking yourselves too seriously.

Mean, I think we can do serious work without being completely serious, and I think that is really really important.

And I think it creates differentiation to be honest in what is a, you know, heavily saturated market from a marketing communications point of view for asset management. And the tendency is because the topic is serious, Yeah. Is to deliver it in a very dry way, and I think there are opportunities to do that. That doesn't mean we're doing it across everything.

No. You've gotta find you've gotta pick your moments. Of course. But yeah, absolutely. I really believe that that is a way to differentiate yourself, and to be honest, have more effect in terms of the impact.

There's an infographic that was published, think by there's a data visualization chap that's really big on LinkedIn called James Eagle. Yeah. Is it Eagle? Eagle is his company.

Yeah.

And I think he was saying that the the investment products are approaching a million products globally.

Surprised me.

And the need for differentiation in such a crowded There's a there's a stat from MarketWatch plc, which is this of the number of asset management communicate so marketing communications that go to IFAs in the UK.

So in one month, it's about eighteen hundred. And in a year, it's about some eight eighty thousand. It's crazy. Yeah. So, you know, if you're gonna send out another piece, how do you make sure your email's opened, how do you make sure people wanna come to your event, it is a challenge.

Yeah. With culturally within a lot of asset managers, there's a real, I guess, almost fear of pushing the boundaries a little bit too much. It doesn't sound like the case anyway.

Well, certainly, I mean, I can't speak for anywhere else, obviously. You've seen my CV. Haven't worked anywhere else. Certainly, you know, the way I'm talking to my team is is absolutely, let's just try some things.

Not all of them are gonna work. Yeah. But it will that is what we want to test and see. It's helpful when the data backs up the thesis that Yeah.

More interesting, more creative results and better response. And we just need to demonstrate that that's true to be able to push it a bit further.

We're not gonna go full entertainment just yet, but I think it there'll be a bit more of that.

Going back to what you're saying at the beginning of our our discussion about listening to the marketing podcast, this is what they'll tell you, that creativity gives you more You get to the edge.

Effectiveness.

Yeah. It's like seventy eight percent of b to b ads are defined as dull.

Yes.

And if you can cut through that and and yeah, it's I mean, obviously, now need to actually deliver some ads that don't fit into that category, but But like you say, it's not it's not all pieces.

So you you I guess you you start with perhaps more of the the cutting through for the brand awareness and then you can there's still Definitely.

And there's, you know, places you can do it more, social, other thing, you know, event space, you probably can do more of that. Whereas, you know, in proper white papers or in certainly from a servicing point of view, they were like, you know, you shouldn't be doing that. So, yeah, there are you find your pick your moments.

And the the the big territories for you being Europe and Asia, With you mentioned a little bit about it being less well known in Asia, so that you're do you still take a kind of like distinctive approach?

Yeah. Yeah. I'd say we do. And we've taken Amazon.

Okay.

Out to Asia and we we just sort of testing really. We kind of want to make sure people understand who we are before we kind of immediately go with a what might be seen as slightly more zany approach to thing. But it's definitely part of the mix. And so it just depends where we are. So in Taiwan we're sort of, you know, at that early stage in terms of increasing our visibility in other markets, we're more established, so it just depends.

And within Europe, how is it, is it fairly consistent within Europe, the approach?

In terms of our kind of awareness and pitch, yes, I'd say so. You know, depends, we're generally well known from a fixed income perspective, partly bond vigilantes, partly just, you know, capabilities we've sold in the past.

And we sort of, you know, that would be quite consistent across the whole of Europe. Then within that, there would then be some variants of what else we might be known for.

Yes.

Depending on whether the market was more institutional or wholesale.

We talked a little bit about this. This is marketing literature and science. Oh, okay.

So you mentioned Ehrenberg Bass Institute, is obviously the home of marketing science with Byron Sharp and Africa.

Oh and Jenny Romaniuk?

Yes.

That's her name, think, I don't if I said that correctly, but that's.

Yeah. I think you've done better than I would. So tell me about about how you kind of like take that that knowledge and start to apply.

I would definitely say I'm not spending hours and hours reading the the detail, I have got, you know, I've got copies of Byron Charles book and Jenny Jenny's book on, and so building brands and all those kind of Distinctive assets.

Yeah, exactly. And all those kind of concepts I think have been really just interesting when I'm kind of thinking, okay, where are we in, you know, our process when we're thinking about the brand and how we develop it.

And that's all been really useful, but I wouldn't say I kind of take it and then we follow it exactly. No.

It's more, I guess, they're just sort of a, you know, interesting things things are Use it as a tool to reflect on. Yeah, exactly, and then go and kind of ask annoying questions as I said because I'm pretty Yeah, yeah, mean it's, I think a lot of, I think the Arenberg Bass is supported by mainly FMCG brands Yes.

Particularly Unilever, I I believe. Yes.

Think so.

When I look at that that those kind of that kind of literature, it it does require that process of translation, doesn't it?

Definitely, you can't kind of take it completely. And I think when you so the b to b institute on LinkedIn has probably taken some of those theories and definitely has much more relevance. Yeah. Again, it's not purely financial services, but there's a lot within that. Certainly a lot of the advertisers on LinkedIn from a b to b point of view are financial services. They they have got a lot of data on Yes. How we're how we're doing.

So it is is all of those, but Yeah. And what what what you sound well read around a b to b institute, are there any any pieces The CMA scorecard, is quite a relative, well, not a relative recent, you know, the last, certainly within the last six months Okay.

Is a really useful way of thinking about kind of how how you should be assessing success in terms of sort of brand awareness.

Okay.

In terms of what are the different components that you should be thinking about when you're thinking about media spend, creativity.

Right.

What's the most important thing that can move the dial and quick comes off, comes back to creativity.

Right, right. So I haven't seen that, that's a good tip for me to go and have a look at.

CMO scorecard. Yep.

Anything else that's that's Well, there's a podcast I'm listening to at the moment called Let's Make This More Interesting Okay.

At Adam Morgan. And it's really good.

There's lots of different ideas for ways to make topics more engaging or delivery mechanisms, lessons from a producer at the X Factor, for example, about how, you know, so I don't know, just things like that that that I think usually just give me one idea that will be kind of I always use x factor when I'm talking about formats for Yeah.

I always say that no matter where you are in you can turn on x factor or any point in the show, and you kind of broadly know where you are. And that to me is the is the beauty of formats and repeatable formats, so when you can start creating video content. So, yeah, that's my go to there.

Excellent. Well, this is really interesting because it's all about of how do you make, you know, everyone, thousands of people that they see, but how can you make what everyone's story kind of interesting when actually lots of people's stories are the same?

And that's that that's That sounds fantastic.

When you think about, I guess, asset management pitches or anything like that. Yeah. So yeah, lots of Yeah.

Ahead, let's call it a year in, what does the, what's the vision over for M and G and your role over the next twelve months looking Yeah.

Absolutely. I mean, I think I for us, I mean, that that brand success is is really important but also being seen to kind of really be pivotal in that commercial process or growth process for the sales teams is really really important. So I think that internal recognition for that support as well as the kind of external metrics about that is is key. Yes. From a team point of view, I've kind been saying to them, we kind of just want people to kinda go, oh, you work at M and G, that must be. Yeah. That must be good.

Yes.

You're doing the Building that almost pride element.

I think so. Think that's really important. And you know, there were definitely, hopefully things we're starting to do, but at least internally we're thinking, okay, great, good. We're like, that's that's fun.

And like I said to you, you know, I kind of came back having a bit of distance from it. So I kind of want to make sure that we feel like we're making a difference in terms of what we're doing. I don't mean that in terms of a it's a big purpose thing, but I think in terms of the activity that we're doing, we're making a real difference to what the business is doing.

Yeah. And I guess that's that's partly linked into what you're saying about the team really enjoying working on the Ampersand project, taking pride in in that element, but also elevating the brand itself.

Yeah. Exactly.

Serving serving, you know, having commercial benefit, but also hopefully being something that Good for the soul slightly as well.

Yeah, think with a bit of that.

Yeah. Yeah.

The elements you talked about around the Martech and what what's the sort of plans there over the next Yeah.

I mean, really, we've got some work to do on our website, kind of from a foundational point of view, to sort of address some of the kind of challenges from a structure and design point of view. I'm sure, you know, my peers probably say something similar from that side. It's a bit of a monster in terms of the scale of it. We need to kind of really think about how that works.

And then looking at things like lead capture, nurturing, how we really make more use of that. Not focusing too yet in the next year on the nth degree of marketing attribution.

It's more about making sure we can demonstrate whether that's an account based marketing level or just more generally at a country level that we're sort of starting to add some values that, you know, will take some time, but certainly the proof of concept gonna be really really important in that.

Right. Right.

Well, thank thank you so much sitting down with us today and having a wide ranging discussion My pleasure. Covering sweets to Ehrenberg, Bass, Mark Ritzon, and Byron Sharp. I think we've we've covered many bases.

And given me a lot lot a bit a bit of a reading material to go back to with as well. So I'll be looking at LinkedIn B2B Institute. So Great stuff. Thank you very much.

Pleasure. Thank you.

Thank you for listening today to The Growth Engine. If you enjoyed this episode and like to hear more, please do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts from and follow us on LinkedIn for regular updates or on www.hubagency.co.uk Thank you and see you next time.

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