Margaret Jobling - Natwest 00:00
Fundamentally the consumer understanding is where it starts. Do you know who you're trying to target, what they're motivated by what role your brand plays in their life and how to engage and drive emotional relevance with them is still the core of what we do.
Ben Kaplan 00:13
This is the podcast where we go around the globe, marketing leaders from the world's biggest brands, fastest growing companies and most disruptive startups, great ideas after a certain wave want to spread. They want to be told to someone else's simple, surprising and significant data to unlocking viral creativity is to make it rapidly scalable. This is TOP CMO with me, Ben Kaplan. today I'm chatting with Margaret Jobling, the CMO of Natwest Group, one of the top three largest banks in the UK. Margaret's marketing background is a who's who of British business at Centrica, a massive British energy company. She served as the group's Chief Marketing Officer at Cadbury Dairy Milk, Margaret was responsible for driving the marketing strategy, one of the world's most iconic chocolate brands, a mystery. Why are you buzzing around? Haven't you heard of Cadbury's caramel? at Unilever, she played an instrumental role as the global brand director for the male grooming business units, shaping the company's global strategy in this critical segments. So how does Margaret apply her marketing acumen to the regulated and conservative financial services sector? And how does she get her team to compress production timelines from two months to just two weeks? Let's find out with Margaret Jobling. Margaret, one of the things I know you've mentioned, is that the world is changing so much that it's all new charted territory, how do you even approach that as a CMO if yesterday does not equal today? And today does not equal tomorrow?
Margaret Jobling - Natwest 01:56
Great question. I guess, you know, Nuff said, The world is moving so quickly. And I think you know, the way we look at it is we need to be clear about where we want to get to. So we obviously have clear business strategy. Marketing Marketing Strategy underpins where we're trying to get to from a business perspective. But I think what I've seen in the last two, three years is planning actually can only get you so far because things are moving so quickly. So we've done a couple of things. One, we've we moved agile. So we said actually, we're going to bring cross functional teams together. And we're going to operate on cycles. So 12 weeks, so we plan 12 weeks, but within that we get clear about we're going to pivot and we have got a much better clock speed now and a monitor of what's going on externally. Because what we've also seen is what happens in it 910 months time, who knows. So actually, what you need to be doing is be agile about the investment be able to move money quickly to test and learn. And the only way you're really going to be able to move fast as if you've basically build optionality into your planning. So we spent a lot of time looking at, you know, how do we organize our internal resources to give us the best chance of basically moving at the speed of life, which is what's happening with our customers.
Ben Kaplan 03:14
And to use a very current example, recently had news of threat to contagion and confidence in the banking industry, which really gets its start in the US with unbelievably rapid fall of Silicon Valley Bank, which was the very large bank and the second largest bank that to happen in the US, it starts spreading people are worried about across the US and potentially over the world as a crisis of consumer confidence. So how does in your 12 week Agile Model? And optionality I'm assuming you didn't plan for that specific option? But how does that impact and enter that cycle? That's different than if you were on an annual planning cycle?
Margaret Jobling - Natwest 03:48
So daily? I mean, we will be having well did have do have still having? Because obviously, that's carried on that demise of banks. So we would have daily calls on that daily call we'd be looking at, is there any exposure? And it what's our customer inbound? What's happening to sentiment? Is there anything we need to be doing to both reassure our people but also our customers? So essentially, we will be monitoring that and then making decisions around do we need to send out customer it's all okay. Don't worry, communication through to do we need to be talking about liquidity with our big customers to make sure that they know we're well capitalized. So you basically your cadence once you move Agile is literally daily. So on those daily sessions, we would be agreeing at what point we potentially make some different choices around whatever communication was going out with whatever stakeholder group that it allows you to pivot literally within 24 hours.
Ben Kaplan 04:48
It sounds like to me, I mean, if my PR world, when you're dealing with a crisis communications, you would go into sort of a rapid cadence, you would have to do it. This wasn't your crisis. This is somebody else, but it's in this Agile Model. If you're looking at it closely, because you just have to know if a course correction is needed quickly, right, you're almost going into a pseudo crisis mode, even though it's not your crisis,
Margaret Jobling - Natwest 05:09
correct fee which run up in its precaution, right. But in the cadence we've got already it can play straight through into our existing cadence to make sure that there is no issue. And if there is, we can respond really quickly. And the daily cadence, I think what I've found moving Agile is it really gives you transparency of what people are working on. So you know, give you a literally, by the day I go, what's on the stack for today, any help needed any blockers required? So you can pivot very quickly into what potentially is more of a crisis or a precautionary crisis mindset?
Ben Kaplan 05:43
And did you adjust in this sort of Agile way any of the advertising spend as a result, meaning like, hey, we don't need to go out and do this other thing in some ways doesn't ladder back to trust liquidity, you can count on us all these key messages, if there's this sort of a contagious spread? Did you? Did you cut anything that if you were on an annual plan, you wouldn't have cut? or Now did you keep everything as it was?
Margaret Jobling - Natwest 06:04
Then? We've just stayed the course. I mean, I think what we've seen is, yes, we need to be really conscious of what's going on in the world and any potential read across. But the best thing we can do right now is to talk about the things we're doing that are brilliant for our customers, it could have been very different. And we would have, obviously course corrected if needed to be, you know, which is what exactly what happened during COVID totally changed the comms plan, totally change what you were talking about, and how to really pivot very quickly into how do you practically help customers? So I think, you know, in today's world, my, the biggest thing you could do is stay really close to the people that matter who the people that you serve, who are ultimately are your customers,
Ben Kaplan 06:44
when did you sort of shift to this agile marketing model? Was that an outgrowth of COVID? itself? Did that cause you to? Or was this before that? Take me through the series of unprecedented things? I'm curious if that led you to this faster moving model,
Margaret Jobling - Natwest 06:58
okay. Is it cause and effect? I think what I saw in lockdown was as soon as we went into lockdown, you know, actually, what that did was pushed down decision making enable cross functional teams, and the business moved way faster. So I think it was definitely a catalyst to say, there is a very different way of working hierarchy went, you know, actually, in fact, I think there was a very different approach to sign off and regulation. And a lot of the stuff that actually got in the way of us doing business with speed disappeared, because we had to. And the first thing is during that when we went to and read the bank and then went into lockdown was you had to keep the business running. So we had to, we had to get the business up and running, because suddenly, everybody was catapulted to the far winds into their home base, and therefore, give How did people get technology and get connected? And what do we do with the branches? And how do we answer customer queries? I mean, there was a lot of you have, you had to empower the business. And I think one of the big concerns as we will come in, through and out that was, we don't want to lose that agility, we actually really want to retain the speed and the decision making and the empowering of our people. So actually, during lockdown, one of the things we talked about was how do we then maintain that agility and move the business to a very different way of working so it was during lockdown that we pivoted.
Ben Kaplan 08:25
When all of us went on lockdown for the pandemic, it created dramatic shifts in what was expected of our business culture.
08:32
The pandemic has fundamentally changed the way we work and socialize. A lot of people may want to continue working from home once the pandemic ends, curse that virus, but bless high speed internet, my office is in my car in my home in my kitchen.
08:45
So many people started working for home for the first time during the pandemic, and they found that they actually really like it.
Ben Kaplan 08:51
In the aftermath, some companies went back to business as usual. In others like Natwest Group, Margaret tried to harness the faster responsiveness from the pandemic, and keep it within her marketing team. Simply put, she thought the pandemic was an opportunity to get her team to think and act more quickly. What a practically mean, and there's other CMOS listening saying, Gosh, I thought I had to do the annual planning cycle. That was the only thing I could do. Now I'm hearing we could do 12 weeks. What does that mean, practically? What happens if today's day 112 weeks from now we got to do this again? And what does it look like and why 12 weeks? Why not? 90 days? That's a quarter, why not six months to get a bit more time? Just take us through the decision making on that because I think other CMOS would be interested.
Margaret Jobling - Natwest 09:38
Yeah, I mean, we adopted the what is the typical agile kid and so they bet I would say see it doesn't get you away from annual planning. You still start with a because we are running a big multinational business where we need to be putting our hands on saying we need this much money and these are the business priorities. And so what we what we do at the beginning of the year is go what are the OKRs we're trying To achieve over the course of the 12 months, and then we basically break those down into 12 week cycles. So of those 12 week cycles, we then got two week sprints that sit within them. And over the course of those 12 weeks, we'll go okay, if we want to get to, you know, whatever mortgage sign offs by the end of the year, what realistically do we need to do in the next 12 weeks to build those plans. And then we're constantly at the end of the 12 weeks checking course correcting, you know, adjusting and moving around whatever's required, whether that's money resources, or, you know, the business priorities have moved on. So we'll be then re looking at those, okay, are still relevant, but the OKRs for the function ladder, and are totally interlocked with the business objectives and key results. So we essentially flow top to bottom, if this is what we're trying to achieve as a business. What is that? What's What's that marketing's take on that? And then how do we break it down into cycles?
Ben Kaplan 10:58
The cycles? What's interesting about it is the sounds new and different in the marketing space. But if someone's listening who has ever worked in a product space, or an engineering space, it's very normal. They're like, I'm used to doing two week sprints, I'm used to doing all these things. So was it difficult to get buy in in the marketing team? Or no, because I think certain divisions are just not marketing are used to working this way.
Margaret Jobling - Natwest 11:18
I think there was a spectrum there. So there was people who had already worked this way and absolutely embraced it through to people who would, and they would describe it as I'm stood at the end of a cliff and you're saying jump, and trust me, it'll be okay. And then when they jump is the analogy. So one use was it felt like I was in a washing machine, and I was getting spun around and around and around. And you know, we did a couple of things, we were very thoughtful around which bits of the function can't go Agile because of the nature of the beast. So mandatory, for example, we took out of the work and said we'd run a separate team for mandatory because it's got a different set of requirements. And therefore it's much harder, doesn't mean they can't adapt and adapt some of the ceremonies and the ways of working. And we interlocked our cross functional teams and pulled in people from other parts of the business like data and analytics would sit in their work and are still working progress on how do we take the agency end to end? Because I think the people who struggled hardest actually, we're our agencies, creative agency media agency. So you know, we've been testing, putting creatives in the scrums, because that will accelerate our ability to do creative content and self serve and improve the speed. But they found that particularly challenging,
Ben Kaplan 12:41
we're a global marketing agency to part of where people hire us is we've had a model and a system that's refined over time, there's efficiencies, we know how to work, we're supposed to be able to generate, whether it's creative, or planning or buying or other things more efficiently and effectively than you can because we're specialists in this. But then you're also looking at this isn't their model to do in this way, we need you to work in our model. And so how did you try to do that? Or did you have to change agencies? Did you have to have ones that were more performance marketing mindset is a little bit more of a performance marketing mindset than a sort of set it and forget it annual planning mindset.
Margaret Jobling - Natwest 13:16
So we're still evolving it. I'm honest, Ben, I think we're we've tried. So what the the approach at the moment is to take different Scott scrums and try different models. So let's try a model where we put fully loaded all of that resource into a scrum. The challenge you've got with that is it's not scalable without creating an army of agency people that can then man to man, Marcus. So we're then looking at do you know, do you have a planner that works across multiple scrum so rather than being embedded and aligned totally to one, and where does from an agency perspective waterfall and kick in because you can have creative resource to add point in the scrum. But then if you're looking at, you know, the templating and the production icing of some of the support from a supply chain perspective, there is a point where it's more efficient to have that back end, running across all the scrums. So we're still looking at how we evolve it and how do we keep it simple for the agencies because, you know, we've exploded in terms of number of scrims number of cross functional teams, people who are empowered to go do work, that then just creates a massive headache for our agency. So I definitely I don't think we've cracked it that, you know, internally, we've made massive progress because we've got full transparency. We know exactly what we're doing in what two week it's going to get delivered. And we can then move money and resources, people and cash really quickly across the priorities.
Ben Kaplan 14:43
So what does it mean to have an agile workflow? Agile is an iterative approach to project management, typically in software development that helps teams deliver value faster, and with fewer headaches. Instead of betting everything on a big Bang launch. An agile team delivers work in small but consumable increments, most commonly two weeks in length, requirements, plans and results are evaluated continuously to teams have a natural mechanism for responding to change quickly. Do this in marketing, even within a big bank, a few cultural components are required. This includes flatter organizational hierarchies, a culture of open communication, and establishing cross functional teams. What's especially interesting about what Margaret has done at NatWest is that she's done it in a highly regulated industry, that usually has legal and compliance issues that no one would describe as quick. You give an example of what is exempt from this saying like we're a big bag, we can't work in this way. What's an example of let's say, an OKR, that comes down that filters all the way down, that's part of these sprints. And these 12 week planning cycles was an example of that that some of you would working on.
Margaret Jobling - Natwest 15:58
If I look at retail banking, we want to drive primacy. So to be the number one bank of use with our customers, because the customers are multi banked. So we'd have a primacy target, which have been set by the business, we then go okay, what are the what are all the ways in which marketing can support primacy? And therefore, what's our contribution to that in the cycle? So we might run five or six tests and learns to look at how do we get customers to, in deepen engagement with us over the competition? Do you
Ben Kaplan 16:27
want to be the primary bank, you might have five banks, but we're number one. So you want to deepen the relationship. And then when you say, test and learns during the cycle, one thing that's different is that when you start talking about testing and learning, there's a little bit of a different comfort level, you have to have with failure that sometimes people overlook, meaning if you go in and you're like more of a traditional conservative, maybe approach, you'd be like, Okay, we need to hit 90% of our stuff needs to be successful, we're successful people were successful bank, we're successful marketing team go be successful. But then you shift to this test and learn which is something that we love. In fact, our agency TOP it's an acronym stands for test optimized and perform. So you're speaking our language, you're saying test and learn, but you have to actually be a little bit more comfortable with, you're gonna run some experiments, that bitterly and miserably fail. And you have to be okay with that. And, and also people want career advancement, they want other things, you're sitting at the top of the food chain, they have to know you're okay with that to fail. So if we've learned something from it, if we do the right way, we don't want to waste money failing at something. But if it's advanced our thinking that's good. So how do you get people to think like that? Because it's easier said than done? Yeah, let's do some experiments. Sounds great. But some are gonna fail.
Margaret Jobling - Natwest 17:35
Yeah. And I think there's a few bits me, I think, one, you know, we don't talk about failure, you talk about every every experiment is a learning experiment. So either a did or didn't do what you were expecting. So I think this, how do you get really clear on the empirical question you're trying to answer? How do you then upfront decide what the metrics are that matter that you're going to measure? And actually, then it's an outcome driven conversation? Did it do what you expected it to do? You then need to wrap around that process, reward recognition. And actually, the mechanics where people can talk about what happened, you know, what did it turn out as expected or not expected, and you celebrate both good, bad and ugly, and you talk about good, bad and ugly, because the wet of vet internally is all of that is a learning opportunity. And actually, by not sharing it, you're doing your colleagues a disservice. Because you're you're not giving them the benefit of your wisdom and your experience on things that you've tested. So, you know, we talk a lot about experimentation. How do we end We're looking now at metrics, which is number of experiments around, you know, what was our success rate? What was our been learning from it? How do we archive that? How do we actually make that searchable for that department? Because we're running multiple teams who we're serving, we're basically a three three p&l and the business, those teams are aligned to the p&l. So we want to test and, and scale insight and learning quickly for when it's going well. So how do you serve that up and create the forums and the mechanics, that people to do that, but you're right, culturally, you need to get very comfortable with, it could go as right as it can go was roll. And actually, that's fine.
Ben Kaplan 19:22
The analogy I've used is almost like if we were surfers, on any given wave, you might get up and you might be surfing and you might fall miserable. You do something else. And usually, traditionally, you're like, Okay, I want to get on the wave. And I want to ride this wave and look at me, I'm in the curl the wave and doing all these things. But you might fall if we take this mindset, it's not like it's good or bad. It's just like, what did we learn? Like, what how did the wave work? And what did we do and what method did we use? And can we tweak that method, and it's neither good nor bad that we fell, it's just what happened and you can't really get mad at the wave. The wave is just the wave. The wave is just what exists in the world. So you just got to go with it and learn about it. I'm trying to sort of say you almost have to be a little bit dispassionate and say where scientists running experiments and to understand the world better. And as long as we're advancing, getting closer to that understanding that's going to pay off at any given experiment. That's okay. Because we have this bigger goal in mind that we're trying to get
Margaret Jobling - Natwest 20:13
totally agree. And I do think a lot of it is mindset. But you need a mindset, which is a learning mindset. You need a curiosity, and you need to basically be constantly looking at how can we improve it? How do we do it better and not get wedded necessarily to the outcome? Because historically, what I've seen is people become very there, once you start talking about pilots, and that it's hard to get rid of stuff that isn't working. So actually, you need to be dispassionate, because that then allows you to be much more scientific. I've got PhD in laser chemistry. So maybe that's why I like it so much.
Ben Kaplan 20:49
If you enjoy this show, you'll love TOP CEO. TOP CEO is a business school case study telling the story behind the story, and what you can learn from it from those who have faced the fire and come out the other side.
21:05
That was the challenge the team was faced 25% of it was gone. I found myself $282,000 in debt, how would
Ben Kaplan 21:12
you navigate through these trials and transform them into opportunities for growth and success? How do you build back up the business and get out of debt and get anything
21:19
in? Nobody can come to work right in any of our factory in any of the factories?
Ben Kaplan 21:27
This is TOP CEO available wherever you get your podcasts. And how does that relate to this notion of planning for uncertainty? It sounds like a contradiction in terms that you could plan for uncertainty. But is it just because things are less set in stone? You're more flexible? Is that do it or does it do anything else for how you deal with uncertainty uncertain times that word unprecedented that we weren't speaking about?
Margaret Jobling - Natwest 21:55
Yeah, I think what experimentation does is almost de risk. It makes it more certain the probability for success. So when you thinking about particularly new areas, new platforms, you know, do we play in the metaverse? Do we not play in the metaverse? What do we do on tick tock, tick tock work for us as a regulator brand? How can we make an impact in that space? How do we, you know, play around with medium mix of channels or segments? So I think it actually de risks before you go large with something and I think so for me, it actually allows you to push into new territories. And the challenge, I think in marketing is how do you protect that spend, because actually, what you like to drive ultimately is certainty. And so that's what the business wants. That's how your forecasts perform performance that ultimately we go to the market and say this is the outcome we're going to drive. So in some ways, for me experimentation is a de risking mechanic to say, if you start going big on something, you more certain that it's going to work and it allows you to do it. I think building in the flexibility is a slightly different building flexibility, I think is slightly different. I think it's about how do you give yourself optionality as you lay down your plan so you can turn off and turn on as things move quickly, markets, if you think of where we are this year, you know, credit card market is going mental mortgage market is falling, because everyone's really worried about interest rates and affordability. You see in some big swings in our people invest in or they're not investing or depends on what's going on the macro environment, we have to be able to respond to that. And we can't be too setting. You know, this is the commercial outcome you're necessarily going to get because the market demand may not be there. Or it may massively be there when you need to capitalize on it.
Ben Kaplan 23:43
Ironically, by planning for uncertainty, we get more certainty which we need as a business to scale and we need predictable things that you put in x, you get out why why is bigger than x and so our business can grow
Margaret Jobling - Natwest 23:58
correct. And it allows you I think, to flex when things move quick, you know, you've got to be you've got to be close to what's going on externally. And if you've got the mechanic saying I don't need it in the US, but you're still talking two months signed off for a media deadline in the UK for TV. Two months, a lot happens in two months in a given, you know they'll hold can fall very quickly or rise very quickly, depending on what's going on in the macro.
Ben Kaplan 24:25
Does anyone say Margaret, you're crazy to do this in financial services. The reason I asked is because you have a background in consumer products. You bring that sensibility as well. You've done things launched Dove deodorant across Europe, and you were at Unilever earlier in career as well. So I would expect this out of maybe a consumer CPG company or something like that, but less so out of a big regulated bank. So does anyone ever say it's crazy to try this within a big regulated organization or no, you have the golden touch ample amounts of charm, you're able to get this through no problem. Not
Margaret Jobling - Natwest 24:56
so far. I mean, I must admit we've just I've always said seek forgiveness, not permission. So keep going until somebody tells me that I am totally bonkers. But it's generally working with me for us. And you know, if you spoke to the team, they would say, it's working. I mean, we see it, we're more interlocked with the business than we've ever been before. So our priorities are their priorities, which is right, we are working in breaking down silos across the function and cross functionally, like we've never done before. So, you know, actually, we feel I've always said success to me at the end of the year is did my team get seen by the business partners, as in their team are they invite to the Christmas party, because if they are, then they're seen as part of the business, not marketing on the side. And, you know, we're seen as being in partnership with the business, and be there to help and support them and grow their business, which, you know, that success because we're not, we're not there to market for the sake of marketing, we're there ultimately, to help grow our business help customers understand the great products and services we sell, and to drive value into the p&l in the right way with all the regulatory requirements wrapped around it. That, you know, actually, we're doing a better job of that than ever before. And that's built our internal trust, internal reputation, which then means that you know, you get more money. Therefore, you can drive faster, better, you know, more effective growth.
Ben Kaplan 26:31
In information silos occur when different departments or teams work in isolation, limiting knowledge sharing, and collaboration. But what should you do to break down these barriers, you can start by inspiring teams to openly share their goals, progress and challenges with others. This transparency reveals opportunities for collaboration, and sparks innovation across the organization. Next, embrace collaborative tools, invest in cutting edge platforms that simplify communication, and knowledge sharing among teams. Think project management software, instant messaging apps, and more to bridge the gaps and keep everyone connected. Finally, when information flows, celebrate it, the best way to get people excited about working with others, outside their immediate team, is to make them feel great about doing it.
Ben Kaplan 27:33
Banking has become more commoditized in recent years, where banks are generally offering the same types of things. How do you think about that differently from consumer products? When you're doing things like a brand like dove? What are the factors that you have to think about in your marketing to make the whole thing work? That's different than on the customer product side?
Margaret Jobling - Natwest 27:54
I mean, I think the two biggest things between service and consumer goods is in a service industry, your brand is absolutely everything you do. And that is it's the visit that website, it's the letter you send, it's the call that you make as the outbound or inbound, if you're complaining, it's the visit to the branch, see, you have to in marketing, understand the ecosystem, we're more among women, because actually in packaged goods, it's the retailer that owns the relationship with the customer, unless you've got direct to consumer, which most of the big brands or players don't have much of a direct to consumer business. So you need to be translating your brand proposition into customer experience principles into design principles. So as those journey leads build out the design and the experience, you're looking at, how do you build differentiation? What's on the backlog that's going to make you different? What are you fixing for customers, how you're moving pinpoints? So one end, at the other end, I think the data that we have at our fingertips, you know, we know where our customers live, you know what products and services they've got with us, you can see their behavior, you can see them authenticate that come on the side, you know, what products and services they haven't got. And we should be able to predict what they're most likely will be wanting to take next. And serve that up and help them on the journey to get to where they need to get to. So the power of insight data personalization. Is it differently versus what you can do in consumer goods. So as a marketer, you need to be more technical. I believe in a service provision, you need to be raw and my my best friend is the chief digital officer who's running data and analytics and thinking about you know, how do we get the platforms talking to each other? How do you get the martec lined up? How do I drive performance measurement? Because we own the channels, if you think of, you know in life is I I can see what my customers are doing, what they're spending their money on. And I can append with all sorts of data that says, you know, they'd like music or they go on holiday or they like buy in Jimmy Choo shoes, and therefore the rewards you can wrap around it, the experiences you can wrap around, are second to none. So I think it's a very different experience working in the service industry, and a banking, you know, I'd argue, actually, banks have got way more opportunity to differentiate shame on us if we don't, because we have the insight, we've got the data, we can see what customers are doing. And we play a pretty important role in their lives. Yeah, life without money is a hard life. And actually, we can really help people achieve their goals faster, better, in a way that you know, you can't achieve when you're selling deodorant.
Ben Kaplan 30:51
When you think of consumer insight to that kind of model, you actually go to CPG. Right, they have big teams big spends. And, and what you're suggesting is, they have to do all of that, because they don't own the relationship the retailer does. So they put all this infrastructure, how to do it, and yet in other types of industries, where you do on the relationship, and in fact, in banking, where you have you own now with the Russians, but a lot of private information of how people were interacting in the functions of money, something as basic as that, do more industries, like banking needs that really focus on insights. Do you think do you think it is not commensurate with the opportunity there?
Margaret Jobling - Natwest 31:26
Yeah, I mean, I still think you've got empathy. I think one of the challenges though, in banking is it's a series of products and the legacy of banking, there's, it would either be a series of products on different tech stacks, or businesses that have been come together through acquisition or so the biggest issue and legacy service businesses is single customer view, taking the power of all of that data to drive better action, and really use insight into action. So you know, it's almost shame on banking, if we don't get it, right. But there's a lot of work to do to get it right, because you've got to tie all those data sources together, if I look. So my energy, just to give you a small example, when I worked in the energy business, the whole industry was designed around the meter on the wall, the gas meter and the electricity meter, because the meter never moved house, whereas customers move houses. So actually, you had to aggregate the gas and electricity meter data to get a customer view. Because in the system, it was two separate things. And so a lot of businesses big, big complex, businesses, like ours, have a lot of back end work to do, you know, I could have a retail customer who's also a wealth customer who's also running his own business, or her own business, then in today's system, there will be three different customers, we have to be able to then bring all that together to say I see you I see your true value, I see all of your relationships with us. And therefore I can tailor what I do to be more effective and support you and in more ways than ever before. But the back end system is got to facilitate that. And the data is pretty powerful. But you still need inside, you still need to understand human behavior and how to change behavior, and and serve the right products.
Ben Kaplan 33:19
And certainly, it's a big job to do that for the whole bank. But also even just within marketing. Sometimes we don't know what's working in digital, and then someone walked in a branch. And we're connecting those two things together. And we can sort of see their whole experience. To your point about experience. I know you've spoken about before how you can run the greatest ad in the world. That's like the perfect positioning, and it's white space from your competitors. And it's powerful. And gosh, when those ads when you're like shedding a tear, it's such a beautiful thing. And you know, banksman is playing that space, right? Because you're helping enable these life goals and milestones. And it's amazing. And everyone you and you go when can lions and you go through all this. But then the person who sees that calls up the bank goes in the branch and doesn't have an experience that resembles that at all. And so suddenly, it does nothing if you want an award, but it didn't actually accomplish anything. So it's talking about how you think about the holistic nature of experience.
Margaret Jobling - Natwest 34:09
Yeah, I mean, now it's you've got to, as a marketeer think you've got to be worrying about do your journeys work. You know, what happens if I send someone to the website, and this sign page is not ready, or someone goes in and ask the branch about a particular proposition? We've been advertising and we haven't briefed the branch staff and it doesn't work unless it all works. So your ecosystem, you need to constantly understand where it's broken, where are the pain points? What's the quality of our service? Are we in a position to advertise that product? Because if the experience isn't good enough, there's absolutely no point of me filling the funnel at the top from an acquisition perspective, and then getting 90% dropout. So actually, I think as a marketer, you need to be really understanding get out What experiences are being created, and then making sure that they work before you spend a penny. And I've been in conversations before where I've said, we're not advertising because that journey is not good enough. And that's I think we need to be working hand in hand with our products and journey teams. Because there is no point spending money. Not only is it a waste of money, but it's a shocking customer experience. And then they'll go and tell 10 friends, and then before you know it, you've got a problem when they say, Well, bad banks not very good, or that energy companies not very good, because actually what they see on TV is a lead to well, rubbish. And then when I experience it doesn't deliver up to expectation.
Ben Kaplan 35:41
If you are going to create the Margaret Jobling School of marketing for the next generation, you're going to create this new curriculum, we're going to launch it in this era of unprecedented things and uncertainty and all of that everything we've talked about, what would you put in that curriculum to sort of train the next generation that might be different or surprising? Or things like that? How would you approach it if you were going to just re educate, marketing given new world order that we live in now?
Margaret Jobling - Natwest 36:06
No, it was not put in. I mean, if I think if the core elements of what we need to do, they haven't changed, but understand your consumer, really understand your consumer, and don't ever think that you're them, because that's when you really aren't doomed. And when I mean, understand them, understand your brand in the context of their life, understand where they spend their time, how that consume energy information, you know, influence, understand, therefore, the channel mix and how to target and, and then measurement, we have to be able to articulate return on investment. And sadly, there's not enough marketers do it well. So to be credible, you have to speak the language of the business. And I think if you can't speak the language of the business, you can't justify value creation, you can't demonstrate that what we do is adding value to the business. You are the coloring in department. So I don't think what you need to do as a marketeer has changed, I think how it manifests itself in the complexity of today's world, you need to understand the MAR tech stack, you need to understand how measurement works. And full funnel attribution, you need to be as interested in the conversion as a website as the get them to the first and the last click. Because if you're not in that detail, then actually the devil is always in the detail. And I've seen too many market tears when it lands on the website. So my work here is done. Well. Now, if the journey is broken, it's not going to convert and you're not going to get the sale. So you need to care about that. So I think the core skills haven't changed just that. The knowledge, the experience, the commercial acumen, the technical acumen, but fundamentally the consumer understanding is where it starts, do you know who you're trying to target, what they're motivated by what role your brand plays in their life and how to engage and drive emotional relevance with them is still the core of what we do.
Ben Kaplan 37:59
And in an era of uncertainty and unprecedented things, and then unknown, you also have the time dimension. So maybe you understood your consumer yesterday. Do you still understand them today? And do you in fact understand them tomorrow as well?
Margaret Jobling - Natwest 38:13
Absolutely true. Absolutely. And back to don't ever you think that your them kits, we are all doomed if you think you're the man, the person that you're trying to talk to.
Ben Kaplan 38:24
According to Margaret Jobling, a successful marketing strategy in today's complex and uncertain world relies on a deep understanding of consumers effective data utilization, and a focus on creating seamless customer journeys across all channels. But you've got to do this at lightning speed. So shorten your time horizon, be more flexible, take smaller bites, Sprint, then reset than sprint again, you'll react more nimbly and break down information silos, and with each two week sprint and 12 week planning session, you'll reinforce the culture for next time. What's the result? An organization with an experimental ethos that can plan for uncertainty, an organization ready for any unexpected marketing challenge that may come its way? For TOP CMO? I'm Ben Kaplan.
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