WALL FACED

Being distinctive in a sea of sameness.

Brewin Dolphin is an established Wealth Manager with over 250 years of experience – it primarily targets well off individuals over 45 with significant investable assets . But there are many other equally well-established firms fighting for the same small audience. On top of that, sector restrictions that prevent messages that are seen as ‘promissory’ leave everybody saying the same bland things: “Expert advice to help you plan for the future”, “Bespoke services dedicated to you”, “looking forward together” etc. 

Yet Brewin Dolphin had some hefty acquisition targets to hit so they needed a way to cut through disproportionately and drive both awareness of the brand and high quality leads (whilst, obviously, being compliant).

WAY THROUGH STRATEGICALLY

Our governing insight was that everybody (no matter how well off) worries about money: it’s the cause of sleepless nights and anxiety.

So instead of telling customers what we do, we flipped the equation and focused on surfacing some of the specific anxieties that our research showed were keeping our audience up at night:

“I know I need to make a plan for my money, but I just don’t want to think about it”

“This Covid uncertainty is making me feel like I need to get out of investing all together”

“Are my finances as resilient as I thought they were?”

“I don’t think my current wealth manager is paying my finances the attention they should” (this final insight was specifically in Scotland where one of the big firms had undergone a change of ownership leading to significant discontent)

WAY THROUGH CREATIVELY

We needed to bring these anxieties to life, but in a way that was engaging, intelligent and unusual. We wanted to hold up mirror up to our audience so they would see themselves in the campaign whoever they were.

The solution was to tap into the power of personification: there is magnetism in imagery of animals which look like are conveying human emotions, so we built the campaign around some truly expressive and distinctive creatures to represent the anxieties of our audience with charm and humour. 

The beauty of such a simple creative device is that it works equally well in our key brand-building channels  (press and inserts), but also in the hard-working acquisition driving channels that are key to driving leads (native, social, display). 

EFFECT

In pre-testing, the results were strong, with the campaign receiving universal positive comments from a research sample fitting our audience profile.

The campaign itself has just launched with results to come.