Chris Clark, Head of Brand Strategy and Marketing at HSBC, gave everyone at IMM07 a treat. He provided an engrossing insight into the development and management of the HSBC brand. He put the importance of the customer in brand development succinctly:
The best managed brands let customers decide what they think and feel about the brand, rather than dictating values to them
He took the attendees through a voyage of HSBC brand communications, from creative media solutions through to the power of sports sponsorship. Ultimately, he stressed that brands need to do more than position themselves, but take up a position, much as HSBC did. Drawing upon their global reach and local insights, a creative platform was formed:
In a world of increasing sameness it's important to value different points of view
Out of this grew the now famous creative work for HSBC, along with a great site www.yourpointofview.com that asked people to share their points of view on various topics. One is 'Are we too busy to have kids', another being 'Blackberries - good, essential, evil or complicated?'.
Chris pointed out that HSBC strive to be perceptive, progressive, responsive, fair and respectful. They don't accept streotypes. He rightly stressed that so much of the success of the activity has come from individuals living these values in their day to day dealings with customers. True integration indeed. Clear signs of another Brave Brand.
So a powerful case study in how it is done.
Whilst talking about the roles that various communications channels play in building the brand (branch networks, the web, advertising et al), he placed the media agency contribution firmly in an executional role.
He urged the attendees not to
underestimate the value of the media measures such as reach and frequency that you guys deliver. A sign that his view of media folk as little more than valued number crunchers?
He also urged media agencies not to think just about the basic consumer measures based on age and social class, but to deal with behaviours. Interesting comment, given that media agencies believe themselves to be more advanced in behavioural targeting than many advertising agencies.
As for understanding the core brief, Chris urges media agencies to get a copy of the creative brief from the advertising agency. Interesting. Do I sense that the media agency is not the lead agency on the HSBC business?
It seems that he does not believe that a media agency is able to contribute to the strategic development of the HSBC brand. The media agency for HSBC must be somewhat deflated by such a view of their potential contribution on this business.
At the conference I asked him if he felt that the media industry might need some decent PR to get their message over better to clients. His response was that he would rather see the proof that they can deliver big strategic thinking and integrated communications rather than a nice bit of PR. Fair point.
So there is the challenge to media agencies. HSBC (who are not alone) want proof that the media agency world can help the brands at a more strategic level.
However, his strength of argument faltered when at the end of the questions, he admitted that he doesn't
shop the category, in that he doesn't meet with the media agency world and see what is on offer. Whilst he might be right that the media agency world might need to deliver proof to the brands of the capabilities, he might also be pleasantly surprised at what is actually on offer from media agencies these days, with proof to back their claims up. As he said, HSBC don't accept stereotypes. They look for value in everyone. It just might be that there is a little more value from the media agencies that Mr Clark believes. However, the task rests firmly with media agencies to pursuade Mr Clark and other marketers, as many still do not seem convinced.