While winning any award is great, winning for marketing effectiveness has got to be what matters most to marketeers. After all, exceeding KPIs, historic outcomes and delivering strong ROI have got to be the ultimate arbiters of campaign success.

Better still if your marketing effectiveness win is against the biggest names and most innovative brands in financial services.

We were delighted this week, therefore, to win no less than five at the 2024 Financial Services Forum Marketing Effectiveness awards. 

- We won Gold in the Global category for our ‘Invest in the heart of everything’ Biodiversity campaign for Fidelity International. And were also Highly Commended for this in the Most Effective ESG category.
- In the Earned Media category we struck Gold for our ‘Hidden Gems’ campaign for specialist mortgage provider Together, which gained nationwide coverage by mapping and shining a light on the UK’s empty properties and the opportunities they represent.
- We were awarded a Special Judges Award for Most Effective Use of Data and Analytics for The Mortgage Lender, helping them generate coverage and leads in a crowded market.
- And were Highly Commended as Agency of the Year.

### Integration

With effectiveness invariably achieved through the scientific integration of earned, owned and paid-for media, we were also delighted to win six further awards for clients in the international MarComs awards; for Integrated Marketing (for both BUPA and Fidelity), for Advertising (Fidelity), for Media Relations (BUPA) and in both the Social and YouTube video categories. All of the work created and produced by our in-house teams.

### Competing against UK and overseas agencies

To our delight, we also struck Gold again twice last week in the New York based Gramercy Institute Asset Management awards; one in the Public Relations category for our ‘Reaching the Undeserved’ campaign for Charles Stanley, the second for Fidelity international in the Branding category for our innovative ‘Suitably Individual’ strategy, impacting on both investors and their advisers.

With budgets across the board needing to do more, it’s been a great month for being recognised independently for having delivered on the effectiveness clients most crave.

Some awards simply matter more than others

Let’s get real about AI was the subject of our second event this year, in conjunction with the Financial Services Forum.  While our earlier event in March discussed the ethics and challenges involved in the use of genAI for marketing and product dev, this second event was focused on actual use cases.  

With thanks to our amazing panel who provided a range of perspectives:
- Ben Lee, Head of Data & AI, Bidwells
- Michael Jung, CFO and Head of Global Business, DeepBrain AI
- Danielle Moore, Digital Marketing Manager, Lifesearch
- James Maxwell, Executive Creative Director, Teamspirit

Setting up the conversation, Chair Fiona Couper, CMO, Teamspirit, outlined the transformation expectations that generativeAI will have on financial services brands and their communication remain high.

According to Gartner[1] by 2025, 30% of marketing messages will be AI generated, up from less than 2% in 2022. While over 70% of consumers expect AI to negatively impact social channels, so much so that by 2025 50% of consumers are expected to significantly limit their use of major platforms due to a decay in the quality of social media sites - which for marketers, means creating new search and channel strategies for lead gen.

In financial services specifically, use of genAI is widening across operations, with banks’ spending on genAI, as estimated by Juniper Research, set to rise from the current estimate of £4.5bn in 2024 to hit £64.3bn globally in 2030[2].   

Chipmaker NVIDIA’s State of AI in Financial Services report found that 46% of respondents reported an improved customer experience as a result of using AI[3].  The same report found:
- 26% of fs companie are using Natural language processing (NLP) or large language models (LLMs) 
- 23% are utilising recommender systems / next-best action 
- 12% are using AI for their environmental, social, and governance (ESG)
- 12% use it for fraud detection across anti-money laundering and know your customer.

Headline makers in the past few months include:
- NatWest’s AI chatbot, Cora, handled 10.8m queries in 2023 and the bank is rolling out Cora+ with IBM which promises to deliver a more seamless ‘human’ experience’ using the latest AI innovations[4].
- In May this year JPMorgan Chase launched IndexGPT, a ChatGPT-like A.I. that builds thematic indexes currently for institutional clients[5], which they believe will result in an increase in client engagement and broader adoption of quantitative techniques applied to thematic indexes.
- Bunq, the EUS 2nd largest neobank, is expecting to automate 90% of operations with the help of AI and leading to new hires in areas such as AI management and compliance and predictive analytics. 

The panel began by sharing a topline on how AI is being used in their respective businesses, with both Bidwells and Lifesearch building on use that began either during or coming out of Covid.  Repetitive tasks have been sped up, such as note taking, outlining case studies, content brainstorming, creative concept ideation and business development.  

For all, despite early concerns around usage in the businesses, the benefits have outweighed concerns and the challenge is more around ensuring its use and implementation is used well.  Human direction and judgement remains vital.

Conversation then turned to discussing how to create better tailored communications and ensure consumer confidence/trust.  Counteracting the risk of AI homogenisation the panel agreed on the need to use AI as a helpful tool rather than the finished product.

For DeepbrainAI who specialise in creating AI Avatars the business is wholly focused on helping to scale businesses and at a reduced cost.  Michael Jung shared a couple of examples from retail banks in Asia where avatars deliver an improved and more personalised experience.  

Ben Lee, Bidwells talked about how AI is helping across multiple areas of the business especially internally and could see how the use of avatars would be hugely beneficial in onboarding inductions for new employees, and in bringing key policies to life.  How much more engaging to watch an avatar of the Chief People Officer than wade through the dry text manual.  He also talked about the ability to start to interact within the text which will make life even easier.

Danielle Moore, Lifesearch, shared how she is focusing on the impact of Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) on search engine results pages (SERPs), exploring how this evolving technology reshapes digital marketing landscapes and enhances user interactions - particularly as google is no longer the search engine of choice for the younger generation who are happy to use social platforms such as TikTok.

From an agency point of view, James Maxwell, Teamspirit spoke of AI helping inform strategy, concepting and as a helpful copywriting tool to build on.  But reinforced that human guidance and differentiated brand personality are even more vital in an AI underpinned world.  Particularly for financial services where trust is so fundamental.

Questions from the floor ranged from how to ensure AI imagery and avatars still met Consumer Duty requirements (achieved by ensuring clear supers), distinction in a world of AI (by using AI as a helpful tool rather than the whole answer) to whether there remained some fear around its usage and giving ‘the machine’ too much power (reality is that careful trial is required).

In conclusion, the panel all felt that AI was a helpful addition that made their jobs easier and freed up time to allow them to focus on the more strategic and creative requirements.

If you’d like to discuss how to use your brand's personality to ensure a more distinctive brand experience in a world of AI, you know who to contact [hello@teamspirit.co.uk](mailto:hello@teamspirit.co.uk).

## Sources:

1. Gartner 2024 CMO Priorities
2. [https://www.cityam.com/theres-little-room-for-caution-banks-and-fintechs-gear-up-for-ai-revolution/](https://www.cityam.com/theres-little-room-for-caution-banks-and-fintechs-gear-up-for-ai-revolution/)
3. [https://resources.nvidia.com/en-us-state-ai-report/finance-survey](https://resources.nvidia.com/en-us-state-ai-report/finance-survey)
4. [https://www.cityam.com/theres-little-room-for-caution-banks-and-fintechs-gear-up-for-ai-revolution/](https://www.cityam.com/theres-little-room-for-caution-banks-and-fintechs-gear-up-for-ai-revolution/)
5. [https://www.pionline.com/money-management/jp-morgan-chase-launches-indexgpt](https://www.pionline.com/money-management/jp-morgan-chase-launches-indexgpt)


AI Applied. Let’s get real

Having opened our New York office in July 2023, we were delighted to have been recognised by the BritishAmerican Business (BAB) in this year’s Transatlantic Growth Campaign and Tracker.  

Last week at the Institute of Directors we joined the roundtable to discuss UK investment and expansion into the US, hearing from a range of businesses of all sizes who have also opened offices and manufacturing facilities in North America in the past year.

The conversation covered topics including the importance of relationships, growth expectations and sustainability. 

For one professional services provider, a merger with an existing player in the marketplace had proved key, working because of shared cultural values. An anecdote about language and the need for human conversation rang true, with the words ‘significant turnover’ having polar opposite meanings - positive in British English (increased revenue), disastrous in American English (employee reduction).

Many shared that the US had now become the leading business market very quickly. 

Whilst almost all talked about the demand and growth in sustainable and responsible businesses and services, it was exciting to hear how the energy transition continues and the committed investment to making biomass and heat energy more prolific.

The roundtable was a precursor to the actual awards ceremony. Congratulations to winners Drax, Stax and Tower Cold Chain.  Then the networking began, the evening providing a great opportunity to meet other transatlantic pond hoppers - and create new alliances.  As always, personal relationships remain at the heart of doing business and we walked away from the event with some great new contacts.

With thanks to BAB for making Teamspirit part of this year’s celebration and continuing to help businesses strengthen that transatlantic leap.

![BritishAmerican Business Images](//images.ctfassets.net/sxw14dxmazhg/3CAfczTkdW6OYWN5dP2Oxz/2b1c07619a9921b4d4909079cc267027/Presentation1.png)

BritishAmerican Business roundtable celebrates the value of pond hopping

Over the last few weeks our PR team took to the streets of London, hundreds of mini jars of honey in hand, to visit journalists at the national, consumer and trade titles we speak to every day.

A desk drop used to be a classic PR technique. Pre-pandemic, a press release would accompany a gift that would land on journalists desks for them to cover on that day (ideally) with an electronic version arriving in their inbox at the same time. In spring 2020 we hand-delivered hundreds of money plants to the business and money desks across the capital, to celebrate our 25th birthday and remind them that we’re here to help money stories grow. Unfortunately, Covid hit a few days later - some journalists managed to take their plants home or keep them alive over their visits to the office, but many were lost. In a silver lining, a journalist wrote a short story based on the idea, which won her awards for fiction! 

Then the pandemic killed the desk drop - hundreds of journalists working at home aren’t quite so easy to reach in one fell swoop. 

But with journalists now back in the office, for at least a few days a week, it’s firmly time for the resurrection of the art form. I think it’s a great way to keep yourselves, and what you stand for, on journalists’ radars - and for those you haven’t met yet, to begin to build relationships with them. 

While we tucked into pizza on Budget Day, we spotted that Asda’s PR team had sent the money and politics desks at the nationals a hamper full of snacks to keep the journalists fuelled on one of their busiest days of the year. Smart, timely, and relevant. 

We chose to send journalists a pot of honey and a personalised honey twizzler. Not the first thing you might expect from a financial services PR agency. But, in ancient times, honey really was money. It was used to pay taxes and barter in shops. And today, it still is. Pollinators, like honey bees, contribute a huge $22bn to the European agricultural industry per year - not just in the honey they produce, but the crops they fertilise which grows the food we eat. 

While we don’t confess to be experts in hives and honey, we do pride ourselves in being experts in finding different ways to tell a story. Hence the honey desk drop. All with the plus side that our honey comes handmade straight from a Teamspiriter’s hive in the Sussex countryside.

And we decided to hand deliver the honey because it’s critical for us to be out and about, meeting journalists face-to-face - media excellence requires personal relationships. And it was great fun for the whole team, embracing the March showers and negotiations with receptionists across the city. 

And so far, it’s received rave reviews.

“Thanks so much – it’s really "sweet" and kind of you all!” 

“The honey pots are so cute and the little TS honey dippers were incredible. A happy team!”

“My colleagues who have tried the honey say it is delicious so thanks very much."

![Creating a buzz - Content](//images.ctfassets.net/sxw14dxmazhg/5HD1pZTPcdo9EDX2LLXg5s/249540907a60d1fbe5d5b3d1f6066534/Creating_a_buzz.jpg)

Over the last few weeks our PR team took to the streets of London to deliver some sweet desk drops to journalists. Read more about the art of the desk drop here:

Buzzing around London

It’s Mental Health Awareness Day this week. While I am not always a fan of awareness days and weeks, anything that gets us talking about mental health has to be a positive. No one needs me to tell them that the last few years have been stressful. And triggers are different for everyone. But from Covid lockdowns to cost of living crises – there has been a lot going on that can add to day-to-day pressures of life.

Keeping the conversation channels open, and letting people know that talking about mental health is not taboo, are the first and most important roles I think an employer can play. Mental Health Awareness Day might be your starting point. But it’s just one day. We all need to be ‘aware’ for the other 365 days as well. 
It’s the reason we have trained Mental Health First Aiders from all around our business, and we regularly encourage people to seek support should they need it. It’s also why we make sure the private healthcare package we offer includes mental health support. And why we work closely with NABS, a brilliant charity that offers a host of free resources to improve the wellbeing of everyone in the advertising and media industries. 

None of us know when, or why, we might need help. It’s much easier sometimes to open up about physical ailments. But the increasing recognition that mental and physical health are intrinsically linked, and that we must look after and recognise both, is a huge step forward and something I wholeheartedly believe in. 


Why it’s important to have structures in place for mental health support and encourage conversation surrounding it

The importance of supporting mental health in the work place

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