Page 9 - index

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

"We've all -- agencies, publishers and brands -- encour- I'm not rushing to spend money on digital media. I'm
aged users to want something for nothing: access to starting with the people that RBS employs. Those same
great content without having to pay for it, directly or via people who saw it rise from being a provincial Scottish
advertising. Without direct payment or ad-funded the bank to one of the world's biggest companies then wit-
quality of content will diminish. At the same time we ness its fall and the ensuing government bailout."
need to raise our own standards - the quality of what is
being produced as ads is in our own hands. It needs to And he finished by saying that marketing had a great
improve." future if marketers took care to create great brands that
entertained and inspired in order to change or reinforce
Fundamentally, he said, the seven mistakes being behaviors.
made reflected the rush to adapt to digital and the fact
that many marketers had forgotten the golden rules of "Brands need to act and think like people. In my experi-
their profession. ence, the people I've most admired have a number of
traits in common: they are passionate and entertaining,
"Our role as marketers is to provide human understand- they have a point of view, they show empathy, and they
ing: understanding people within our organizations and are open and transparent in their dealings. Most im-
the people outside our organizations, our customers portantly, you know you can trust them”, he said, add-
and potential customers. This fundamental will never ing that “the successful brands of the future will be
change." those that most effectively embrace these characteris-
tics. These attributes will govern not only how brands
In his own job as CMO of RBS, Wheldon said, he was communicate and serve their customers.”
not splashing the cash on branded content or digital
media but would rather focus on the people that the "In an increasingly open and transparent world, they
bank employs to galvanize the workforce as internal will also be the yardstick by which successful corpora-
advocates for the brand. tions will be judged," he concluded. ◊

"Now my job is to restore people's trust in the brand, Source: The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA)
which in large part still belongs to the British taxpayer.

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