Chief customer officer, MONY Group (MoneySuperMarket)
MoneySuperMarket Group - now MONY Group - first hired Lis Barton (formerly Blair) as general manager of insurance, marketing and customer in January 2022, just as its flagship brand MoneySuperMarket underwent a major repositioning. Six months later, Barton was promoted to CMO.
The group increased its marketing spend by almost 10% in 2023, to £182m. A large part of that investment was the continuation of its 'MoneySuperSeven' campaign, starring Dame Judi Dench. Barton launched the third ad in the series this year, with Dench this time spreading the word about MoneySuperMarket’s new rewards programme.
The campaign has “resonated better with consumers than any we have done before”, the company has said, with brand consideration improving by 14% and purchase intent by 6%. The first ad in the series scored in the top 3% of ads for its positive portrayal of female characters, according to Kantar.
MONY Group’s performance marketing efforts are also improving. In the first six months of 2023, revenue generated by pay-per-click marketing rose 25% year on year. By the end of the year, the business was able to report record revenues of £432m, up 11% versus 2022. ■
CMO, Lloyds Banking Group
Suresh Balaji has spent more than 25 years criss-crossing the globe, moving back and forth between India, Dubai, Hong Kong and London, and has been based in the latter as Lloyds Banking Group’s CMO since October 2023.
Balaji’s remit covers the brand, marketing and experience function across the Lloyds group’s full banking portfolio. He is tasked with devising marketing strategies and customer experiences to contribute to business growth, as well as developing creative that communicates its brands’ inclusivity and sustainability. Both loans and deposits grew 1% in the bank’s H1 2024 results, driven by new mortgages and retail savings accounts.
In recent months, Balaji has been behind a new partnership with British Cycling, beginning with sponsorship of the Tour of Britain Women, which helped ensure an equal prize fund to the men’s race proportionate to their lengths.
Through Lloyds’ ‘Launch 2024’ innovation programme, the brand is also partnering with fintechs and startups to solve specific customer and business challenges, such as enhancing internal risk controls and increasing customer understanding of their finances through gamification.■
financial services
Suresh Balaji
Lis Barton
CMO, NatWest Group
On joining NatWest Group in 2020, Margaret Jobling embarked on a mission to improve marketing’s credibility and bring genuine purpose into the brand. That culminated in the launch of the bank’s brand platform, ‘Tomorrow Begins Today’, the following year. The platform has proved so effective that NatWest continues to build upon it today, including its recent Team GB campaign ahead of the Paris Olympics.
Under Jobling’s leadership, NatWest’s marketing team has continued to experiment with new ways to engage younger consumers and leverage creativity. Its '#NatWestKickstart' cost of living campaign on TikTok generated 5 million video views, leading to boosts in awareness and brand preference by 3% and 2.8%, respectively.
Jobling has also inspired confidence in the bank’s B2B arm to put creativity at the heart of its own marketing strategy, bucking the trend within its category. She is also the outgoing president of ISBA, was chair of judges for the 2023 IPA Effectiveness Accreditation scheme and is a mentor for the School of Marketing.
Last year saw NatWest make its biggest annual profit since the 2007 financial crisis, up 20% year-on-year to £6.2bn.■
Chief marketing & communications officer, Apex Group
Marketing at Apex Group is almost unrecognisable compared to a decade ago, when Rosie Guest joined as its only marketer. Back then marketing was perceived solely as a sales support function, responsible for designing flyers and organising events. But that’s all changed.
A flurry of M&A activity has seen the financial services provider grow from 300 employees to 13,000, spread across 112 offices worldwide. Guest has scaled the marketing team with it, building a centralised team of over 50 people.
At the same time, she has transformed the marketing function into a true strategic revenue engine and won herself a seat on the executive committee.
According to Guest, Apex Group’s marketing team ended 2023 with a 30% profit margin as a function, even as its budget continues to grow.
The last year has seen the beginnings of much larger investments in brand-building, including a three-year sponsorship deal with SailGP. The partnership has seen the global sailing league adopt Apex Group’s Women’s Accelerator Programme, which Guest founded.■
Rosie Guest
Margaret Jobling
Chief customer, brand & engagement officer, Nationwide
Catherine Kehoe joined Nationwide in early 2023 to head up its marketing and corporate affairs function, taking on responsibility for brand and performance marketing, customer experience and communications.
One of her first actions was to launch the Nationwide Fairer Share initiative, which over the past two years has seen eligible customers receive a £100 share of Nationwide’s profits. That paved the way for Nationwide to launch its biggest rebrand in almost 40 years, encompassing a new visual identity and brand platform, ‘A good way to bank’.
The platform uses humour to distinguish Nationwide from its bigger banking rivals. The launch ad ranked as one of the most effective banking ads ever tested by System1, and its follow up - ‘In your best interest’ - landed in the top 8% of all UK ads for creative effectiveness, according to Kantar.
Prior to joining Nationwide, Kehoe spent 15 years at Lloyds Banking Group, most recently as chief customer officer, where she was responsible for leading strategy, customer insight and communications for its portfolio of 13 brands. She is also chair of judges for this year’s IPA Effectiveness Awards.■
CMO, Sage
A self-confessed “nosy northerner”, Cath Keers’ natural curiosity has guided her through a wide ranging career path, with roles at the likes of Sky, BT, and Next under her belt. Her experience has provided her with a strong appreciation of the power of brand, which she brought with her when she joined SME-focused financial software firm Sage as CMO.
Over the last four years Keers has reduced Sage’s reliance on demand generation and renewed its focus on brand-building, lead a full rebrand, launched a new customer-focused creative platform, and signed sponsorship deals with Six Nations Rugby and cricket tournament The Hundred.
The rebrand led to a “bumper year” for the business, earning Sage the 2023 Marketing Week Award for Brand Building Excellence in B2B. Refocusing on brand investment both increased Sage’s marketing ROI and shifted perceptions - compared to its nearest competitor, the company claims it is now perceived as 8% more insightful and 6% more empathetic.
A strong first half of 2024 suggests continued momentum. Underlying revenue rose by 10%, EBITDA increased by 14%, and profit margin rose by 100 basis points to 25.9%.■
Cath Keers
Catherine
Kehoe
CMO, HSBC UK
Advancing HSBC UK’s purpose marketing strategy has been a core focus for Becky Moffat since her promotion to CMO in early 2021. With its global purpose platform, ‘Opening Up A World of Opportunity’, the bank is on a mission to become a more culturally relevant brand.
Tackling domestic financial abuse has been a top priority. HSBC UK teamed up with domestic abuse charity Hestia and the ‘UK Says No More’ campaign to turn its branches into safe spaces and help survivors open secure bank accounts. An accompanying campaign drove a 1,400% uplift in visits to HSBC’s financial abuse webpage and a 4% increase in brand consideration. The UK business also has an ongoing partnership with housing charity Shelter, which Moffat is “very passionate about”.
This year, HSBC UK reported its strongest set of results since it was created in 2018, delivering revenue of £10.8bn and profit before tax of £6.7bn.
Moffat is a member of the IPA Effectiveness council and the Effie council, and is also a keen mentor.■
Brand & marketing director, Starling Bank
Rachel Kerrone joined Starling in October 2017, just months after the digital bank first launched to the public. In the years since she has worked to build awareness of the brand, debuting it on TV in 2019.
Last year, Starling increased its marketing spend by around 20% and launched a new brand platform: ‘The Bank Built For You’. The platform marked a move to drive brand salience and consideration and, according to YouGov’s BrandIndex, Starling successfully increased its consideration score from 7.9 to 10.1 in the year to 31 March 2024. It means it is now nudging ahead of HSBC, which is the second-largest UK bank by number of customers.
Starling’s overall brand health also improved notably over the period, with its index score jumping from 5.1 to 6.7. Meanwhile, consumer champion Which? awarded Starling Brand of the Year for the fourth time in a row.
The fintech has hailed its third year of profitability, with profit before tax up 54.7% to £301.1m in 2024. Its active customer base grew by an impressive 17.8%.■
Rachel Kerrone
Becky
Moffat
Marketing director, Santander
Dan Sherwood knows the Santander UK brand inside out, having first joined the bank 17 years ago as senior communications manager. He became marketing director in May 2020 and was this year promoted to lead Santander’s newly merged marketing, communications and responsible banking team. Retaining Sherwood to head up the already “strongly performing marketing function” was a top priority, the business said.
Last year, Sherwood focused his attention on Santander’s corporate and commercial banking arm, launching its first major campaign on TV. On the consumer side, Santander is sticking with its effective ‘Bank of Antandec’ campaign, which picked up its second Effie award last year for demonstrating “sustained success”.
This year, Sherwood has turned his focus to Santander’s flagship Edge current account. Its drive to support the offering is one of the bank’s biggest campaign launches to date.
The UK business reported a 13% rise in annual pre-tax profits for 2023, reaching £2.1bn. Sherwood is also an executive committee member at ISBA, a mentor with the School of Marketing and an advisor for The Children’s Hospital Charity.■
Brand director, Phoenix Group
Hired in June 2021 as Phoenix Group’s first group brand director, Ben Rhodes was tasked with developing the business’s first group-wide strategy.
Less than a year later the savings and retirement firm, which houses brands including Standard Life and SunLife, introduced a new multi-brand strategy and architecture for its business, reflected in a modernised visual identity.
Purpose is now core to the corporate brand, which plans to use its scale to drive positive societal change while allowing its six individual brands the space to win in their own markets. Phoenix Group unveiled the next stage in its transformation last summer – its first-ever consumer-focused campaign.
‘Let’s Get Talking’ aims to start a conversation around people’s pension worries, as research shows 17 million people will be affected by the pension savings gap in the UK. In doing so, Phoenix Group hopes to build enough trust in and awareness of its corporate brand to become “the Unilever of its category”.
Rhodes’s work is paying off. Last year, Phoenix Group achieved its 2025 growth targets two years earlier than planned.■
Ben Rhodes
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Sherwood
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