Banks battle to balance brand against brashness
Jim Prior, The Partners
Banks must convince clients they can make them money, but not be too brash about it
Despite protest from the “build it and they will come” asset management traditionalists, the concept of brand is increasingly becoming the sine qua non of the fund manufacturing world.
Keen to show their modernising credentials, suited investment conference attendees are regularly treated to lessons for finance from the consumer industry by casually-dressed mavericks on how to build their firm’s brand.
The chosen brand guru to be interviewed live on stage by PWM at the Fund Forum in Monaco this year will be Jim Prior, CEO of The Partners branding and design consultancy and one of the key creative minds in Sir Martin Sorrell’s WPP advertising empire.
Dressed in jeans and linen jacket, augmented by a perfectly folded pocket handkerchief, Mr Prior does not disappoint, as he holds court in his headquarters at the heart of London’s trendy Clerkenwell quarter.
His financial clients have included Investec, Aviva and UBS, augmenting consumer staples such as Ford, Samsung and Vodaphone. He was also responsible for rebranding NatWest Bank soon after the turn of the Millennium from a monochrome image to a “much softer, vibrant identity”.
The biggest challenge currently for banks and fund houses, he believes, is to convince customers that they can make money for them, while also having a less brash, ethical approach which will satisfy financial regulators.
“A big part of the audience for your brand in banking and fund management consists of the regulators,” he says. “Any device which allows banks to engage in a better dialogue with regulators is a powerful thing.”
The overseers have not smiled on financial institutions that have overstated their success and boasted about league table positions, he believes. This is why there has been so much recent emphasis on marginal topics such as ethical investing.
There is a great, untold story in finance, about how it makes the world a better place
Where banks and fund managers are missing a trick is that few tell the story of how their work is vital to the functioning of society and the economy. “There is a great, untold story in finance, about how it makes the world a better place,” says Mr Prior.
“The popular image is that banking is evil and concentrates money in the hands of a small group of individuals. But take banking out of the equation and you are left with declining, stagnant economies.”
He is highly sceptical that wealth managers should make too much of the fact that they are now more customer-friendly after the UK’s Retail Distribution Review (RDR) regulations on product distribution.
“It is hard to make this message believable,” he says. “You would have to say ‘we were bad before and we are good now, because we were told to be good. If you allowed us to stay bad, we would be bad as hell!’ It is a difficult story to sell.”
If you have questions on brand for Jim Prior or on private banking for Ray Soudah, please send them to: yuri.bender@ft.com
