2 mins with… Alan Mackenzie
Alan Mackenzie is a brand, marketing and communications leader with over 30 years of experience working in and around financial services with the likes of Santander, Leeds Building Society, Aegon, Clydesdale Bank, OneFamily, Prudential and Standard Life amongst many others.
We spoke to Alan about his secrets to marketing success and what he would do if he were PM for a day.
- Tell us a bit about what you’ve been up to recently
I’m actually on the lookout for my next role. I’ve just completed preparation for the launch of a B2B WealthTech proposition, which I really enjoyed – pacey and a good mix of strategic planning and hands-on delivery. In five months, we created the brand, defined the value proposition, built a website, and prepared the launch campaign.
2.With 30+ years working in financial services marketing you must’ve learned a lot! What qualities do you believe are essential for a successful senior marketing and comms professional?
There are three things that I think are vital:
1. Big picture – everything needs to support a ‘north star’ objective and senior leaders need to provide the vision. It’s the cornerstone for enabling your team to produce great work.
2. Disruption – Don’t do beige “me too” marketing. Be curious and find your point of difference to enable you to stand out from the crowd!
3. Attention to detail
3. What strategies do you find most effective when developing and implementing marketing and comms campaigns?
I find the most successful campaigns all cover three key elements:
- Insight driven – using this to inform comms campaigns is the difference between talking at clients about your stuff (push comms) and understanding their world and offering a solution (pull comms)
- Storytell – bounce proposition facts into a new place to ensure they resonate and engage your audience
- Integration – lots of organisations have channel silos and struggle with this, but being integrated adds visibility, impact – and around 35% more return on investment
4. What books, blogs, or podcasts do you recommend for someone looking to enhance their marketing and comms knowledge and skills?
I get my feed from lots of different places. I am a past chair of the Marketing Society so recommend – and I subscribe to marketing press. I also like to look outside the comms sector for wider context; Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is next on my list.
5. Are there any current campaigns you admire?
A recent social and PR campaign from a new distillery in Edinburgh caught my eye. They have an award-winning organic gin – Lind & Lime – which comes in a very distinct bottle. Enter BrewDog with a new tequila – and a remarkably similar pale blue ridged bottle design. The prospect of a small vs big court case clearly didn’t appeal, so Lind & Lime used PR and social media instead. As well as highlighting the issue in trade and social media, they also sent BrewDog a box of products to ‘help’ them avoid copying their designs by mistake in future, along with a Valentine message to their “not so secret” admirer. BrewDog were on the defensive and lost the hearts and minds. Lind & Lime got viral publicity for their brand and won the moral high ground. Well played!
6. What does financial services in the UK do right and what does it do wrong?
What it gets wrong: customer service is patchy at best.
What it gets right: moving away from profit/margin centric towards longer term customer centricity and a focus on partnerships. Smartphones and software have completely revolutionised the way we spend borrow and save so the financial services sector needs to embrace and get their tech right – or run the risk of getting left behind.
7. If you were Prime Minister for the day what three things would you do?
Only three things? Rejoin the EU in some form, reform the tax system and bring in electoral reform (including Lords) – and I would behave with integrity!
8. What would you do if you received a windfall of £10,000?
Give some away to causes that matter to me, then a holiday to one of the places on my bucket list.
9. Night in or night out?
Out – nice restaurant and a show.
10. Dog or cat?
Dog – we have two in our house, a Lhasa Apso and a Cocker Spaniel puppy.