Financial Services is about to become much more fun

Teamspirit spent two days last week at the first social media in financial services conference. The brainchild of Phil Calvert at IFAlife - the specialist IFA's social network - it set out a bold vision for how IFAs should be approaching their online interaction in an era of online connectedness.

In doing so it helped to set out a model for a more connected, more life planning focus, that would put building a relationship through online social means at the heart of the IFA's relationship with their customers. This was the New Model Adviser's conference, it wasn't about suggesting that IFAs do a bit of blogging. This was about reaching out to new audiences, building networks through multiple channels and turning an IFA's social graph into it's commercial graph. This was about transforming an IFA's business plan and putting marketing at it's heart.

With high quality best practice presentations from Google, LinkedIn, youTube, BTTradespace and the BBC IFAs were exposed to the ways they could transform their organisation with the low cost social tools that are now available to all. This was backed up by the real life executional examples set out by Jaime Steele at Northern Financial Services who are using video in particular to transform their approach to market and Nick Bamford at Informed Choice who outlined the company's new personal finance information, guidance and implementation site Brilliant with Money. These are two organisations already highly engaged in building significant online presence and unlike the past are keen to share the learnings they have made with the rest of the industry.

The best practice was supported by a focus on how to help build and connect a small business from Thomas Power at Ecademy and Alan Stevens 'the Media Coach.' Their straight talking common sense approaches to building trust with audiences went hand in hand with Graham Jones' explanations around understanding the psychology of modern communications online. These were all key to developing a new level of empowerment for IFA businesses.

The new advisers are coming (some would say they're already here). These are nimble, relationship led, content hungry entrepeneurs. Mike Linskey helped to outline what the future can look like for these businesses with excellent examples from the states such as mint.com, Smartypig, Billshrink and Centscity.

This is what IFAs are going to look like from now on it's up to providers to provide the tools they need to execute and the content they can use to help them plan for their clients. IFAs are no longer anywhere near as reliant on providers to ensure their businesses grow and make profits and providers need to understand this before they get completely cut out of the loop.

Notes from the conference:

Chris Fox's overview
Richard Allum 'The Paraplanner's' thoughts

Crispin Heath
Head of Digital

Have they cracked it with nest?

Well I’ve read the research on the PADA site (am I sad?) and seen the video

And 10 out of 10 for transparency and accountability for a branding project. It’s also been developed cost-effectively. You can see why PADA have gone with this route and it clearly has resonated with target audiences. So what do I think?

Well to be honest I don’t thing a name and logo is that important, it just won’t be what will encourage workers to participate in the scheme. Sure it can’t be a complete turkey and as our Planning Director David said the other day, it sounds like many 90s brand names, like the Eggs and Cahoots of this world, which haven’t exactly been success stories have they? I also think calling it a Savings Trust misleads – this is for retirement isn’t it and as far as I know there are no plans to have 401k flexibility? But that aside, it’s simple and accessible which I really like.

Powerful and successful brands are those that understand that it isn’t just what you say, but also what you do and what others say about you. And with an estimated 6 to 8 million people expected to save into nests and £8bn annual investment, the stakes are high.

So what are they doing to make this a success and what are others saying about them?

The most important change is auto-enrolment and this single decision will make the difference to how we save as a nation. Any watering down of auto-enrolment will just mean we have a new stakeholder by another name. Ensuring that employers know how to communicate this effectively to their employees will really be the key to success.

Nests’ reputation will be badly tarnished if companies, who already have company pensions, cut their contributions down to the new levels of 1% - rising to 3% by 2017. The LibDems have estimated 40,000 companies may do that, the Assoc of Consulting Actuaries think a quarter of employers will reduce their scheme benefits and 15% may close existing schemes altogether and move to nest. That will mean that the very people the Government are trying to help will have even less in their nest egg for retirement. The issue of means tested benefits also needs addressing urgently too.

There is a real opportunity for social change and to encourage saving for retirement in this country, so let’s hope that in the next 6 years the focus is on making sure that:
auto-enrolment stays and there is fantastic communications support for employers to employees that is simple and motivating;
that contribution levels go up;
and the underlying investment choices are robust so that the retirement nest egg will be much more than means-tested benefits.

Then nest will be a cracking brand. At the moment it is just too early to say.

Jo

Teamspirit appoints two Creative Directors for the New Year

Teamspirit the financial services specialist integrated agency has promoted Tim Nicholson and James Maxwell to the roles of Creative Director for the New Year.

Tim has been Head of Art at Teamspirit for the past 5 years. Tim studied Graphic Design at Maidstone College of Art, the year below Tracy Emin, graduating with a 2:1. He was Head of Art at DDM advertising eventually taking the role of Creative Director at Partners BDDH's integrated shop, Aviator.

He joined Teamspirit 5 years ago after a 10 year stint freelancing for many above and below the line agencies such as Saatchi and Saatchi, TBWA/GGT Direct (Natwest village), WAVV (launching the More th>n brand), Joshua, Rapier (Film four and Barclays bank), Craik Jones (Prudential, Orange, Virgin Trains) and Proximity London (launching Alliance & Leicester's first ISA).

James Maxwell has been a senior copywriter at Teamspirit for 4 years.
With a background in International Studies at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, James did a post-graduate in Copywriting and Marketing Communications at the AAA school in Cape Town. 

He made a name for himself writing and producing ads at the 567 CapeTalk Radio Station, researching marketing strategy, writing websites and even had a small stint at Buckingham Palace. After time at Steel-London working with AOL and the Financial Times, he moved to Teamspirit.

Commenting on these promotions, Kirsty Maxey Managing Director at Teamspirit said: “We are delighted to promote both Tim and James who are very talented and have been integral to the award winning work we have developed over the past few years. We continue to grow our multi-discipline creative team and we have exciting plans that they will help us to deliver.”

Ten for 2010

Ten for 2010

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This is the week of predictions, whether it’s the year of the Tiger or the year of Tax the first week of January is awash with crystal balls and hopes of joy and worries of doom.

Well, I don’t want to break with tradition so I won’t here’s some of ours, I’m not promising anything revolutionary or indeed any accuracy, I predicted the market to close on 4750 and it closed at 5400 so that’ll give you an idea of expected acceptable predictive tolerances.

Obvious things to watch out for will be changing political leadership, changing taxation, a bumbling economy and lots of change in the banking sector.

Just on the banking sector my question is whether the arrival of new banks will really bring about any change and increase competition or will it be just more of the same?

And the winning numbers this weekend will be…

The highs and lows of 2009 and the potential for 2010

If one thing is certain it is that recovery is far from certain… we’re not out of the woods yet!

With house prices on the up, Quantitative Easing measures seemingly working and consumer confidence in their ability to accrue savings climbing for the third consecutive month in November there are reasons to be cheerful.

But, given the irrepressible march of RDR and impact on adviser/provider business; ongoing uncertainty about the impact of personal accounts and continuing brittleness of investor sentiment (as evidenced in the immediate aftermath of the Dubai revelations)… 2010 could well have some interesting twists and turns in store!

Highs and Lows Of 2009

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The Year in Digital

It's that time of the year when we're forced to face the fact that the year's whizzed by and we can't actually remember what on earth happened. So at Teamspirit we thought we'd take you back through the year's biggest digital events. It's undoubtedly been the year that social media/communications/ideas/interactions or whatever you prefer to call them have been on the tip of everyone's tongue. Facebook passed 350 million users, there are now 20 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, and of course Twitter has been this year's biggest story, a fact verified when it was officially confirmed as 'Top word of the Year'.

However there were plenty of other stories breaking. There have been huge moves in the search arena with Microsoft launching Bing, Yahoo! seemingly giving up and jumping in with Bing and Google trying to take over the world and all the while real-time search partnerships being announced by pretty much everyone along the way. It still wasn't quite the year of mobile despite the fact that HTC's, iPhone's, N97's and Palm Pre's all faced off against each other.

It wasn’t all good news either. Geocities finally closed down, Microsoft lost a ton of staff, Myspace had to completely reinvent itself and E-bay's profits fell hugely as the recession bit. And all of this against a backdrop of the Digital Britain report in which the government attempted to encapsulate Britain's approach to Digital over the coming years.

So all in all a real rollercoaster and here it all is, in links

January 2009







One billion unique users on the Internet

February 2009






Facebook changes terms of service creating big frustration with user community
Speculation about Twitter charging brands for commercial use

March 2009







Many e-mail campaigns alienate customers
Facebook beats Google in steering niche traffic
Google Releases Behavioural Advertising
Social Networks Pass Email in Usage

April 2009








Over 60 percent of people who sign up for Twitter do not return to using it the following month
Brand Mentions Preferred over Ads
Google releases Google Me
Internet surveys combined with traditional research methods are becoming the norm

May 2009







Microsoft announces Bing.com
Google reannounces Google Wave
Online Video Usage Up 53 Percent in ’09
Forrester Predicts Huge Growth for Social Media Marketing


June 2009








Facebook beats Myspace traffic in the US
Time spent on social networks doubles in a year
Facebook user names for user profiles and Facebook pages
The government releases the Digital Britain Report
iPhone release the 3GS against the Nokia N97

July 2009








Social media use soars among b-to-b marketers
Microsoft now powers Yahoo! search
Google announces their own operating system: Google Chrome OS
Facebook gives users more control over their status updates

August 2009








Google Caffeine: Google’s New Search Engine Index is unveiled
Facebook announces real-time search
Twitter announces an API to help control, standardise and mainstream retweeting
Facebook up their challenge to Google with the purchase of Friendfeed

September 2009







Twitter gets an (unofficial) app store
Brands become mainstream on Twitter- mentioned in 1 in 5 Tweets
Companies increasing spend in web 2.0 technologies
Google releases Sidewiki

October 2009








Geocities goes out of business
Bing announces Tweets to appear in search results
Technorati release their State of the blogosphere
YouTube is routinely serving more than a billion video views per day
Yahoo stops using meta keywords for search

November 2009








Linkedin and Twitter integrate
Twitter creates Twitter Lists
Salesforce.com announces Chatter, social computing for enterprise companies

December 2009








Twitter Starts Testing Features for Businesses
MySpace and Facebook sign real-time search deals with Google
Facebook Pushes People to Go Public
Time spent on Facebook by 18-24 year olds declines
Google Announces New Offerings in Real-Time, Mobile and Social Search
Morgan Stanley state 'Mobile Internet Market Will Be Twice The Size of Desktop Internet'

Happy Christmas from all at Teamspirit

Click here for Teamspirit's Christmas message.

Teamspirit hires new digital team

Teamspirit has hired a 5-strong digital team to join its existing digital team and strengthen its offer to clients. The new team comes from Peterborough-based Lightstone who announced they were closing last week.

The team headed by David Simpson have worked together on brands such as Alliance & Leicester, BGL, Ascentric, Yorkshire Building Society, Nestlé and the BBC over the last 6 years. David joins as Digital Director to work alongside Teamspirit’s Crispin Heath. All of the team will be based in Teamspirit’s office in Farringdon, London.

Commenting on the news, Jo Parker CEO of Teamspirit said “The digital work we do for clients has nearly doubled in the last 2 years and we see that growth continuing next year. What we really loved about David and his team is not only their experience in developing great websites both b2b and for consumers, but also their passion for integrating what they do with the offline world so that the customer experience of the brand is seamless. This is an exciting addition for us at the end of a successful year.”

David added “Financial services has been our focus for many years, so joining Teamspirit is a perfect match and an exciting new opportunity for all of us. We’re looking forward to working with the rest of the team to deliver great, results for clients across a wider range of channels.”

For enquiries please call:
Jo Parker, Crispin Heath or David Simpson on 020 7360 7878

The billion pound-a-gram

Be honest with yourself, how often have you almost fallen asleep as you've had data analytics presented to you. The subject is dry, complex, unemotional and boring. Unless od course you're David McCandless. McCandless has turned data visuaisation into a thing of beauty. He has a unique ability to simplify the most complicated of subjects, contextualise the issues and tell a story in one visual blow.

His latest piece for the Guardian gets beneath the enormous numbers that have been flying around in the past couple of years and helps to show us what the really big numbers really mean and when to understand that Roman Abramovich's £7 billion fortune is mere pocket change.


Click to view enlarged version

To view more of McCandless' visual loveliness I suggest a visit to his website:
informationisbeautiful.net/

Crispin Heath
Head of Digital

News – it was a great night for Teamspirit in Marketing Effectiveness Awards last night!

Teamspirit and Teamspirit PR picked up a number of awards and commendations at Tuesday’s 2009 Financial Services Forum Awards for Marketing Effectiveness held at Guildhall.

Teamspirit won overall Most Effective Integrated B2B Campaign for Prudential, which was also commended in the most effective advertising campaign category for the same work, with sales increases for Q1 2009 exceeding all expectations and APE sales up by at least by 290% for some wrappers.

Legal & General Retail Investments work was also highly commended in the Most Effective Integrated B2B campaign and also in the Most Effective Public Relations category.

This was a fantastic result for our clients and shows that marketing effectiveness, especially in such challenging economic conditions, is at the heart of what we deliver.

Joanne Parker
Chief Executive

Give me dull performance any day.

Looking at asset manager advertising in preparation for a pitch this week got me thinking about why we need to see 50% over 5 years and similar big numbers. We’re trained to see these figures as good, but if the last 18 months have shown anything, it’s that the bigger the upside, in general the bigger the downside.

And the real reason that we need this kind of performance is that as a species we prevaricate. It’s only when the problem is looming that we start doing. And when it comes to retirement that’s very bad news. Starting retirement plans in your 30s is simply too late, and even your 20s is leaving it a bit late. No, the real answer is to start preparing for the end of a life when it’s just beginning. Start investing an achievable £178/month at age 1 and you get £1,000,000 at age 66, needing only 5% pa compounding; to get the same sum starting at 30? A slightly less achievable £898. To get that nice round million using £178/month over 35 years that easy 5% pa has to rise to a slightly less easy (and probably more risky) 12.09%. And of course most pensions start later.

So if I’m lucky enough to have grandchildren one day maybe I’ll do something super sensible and take out a pension for them. That really would be a gift that kept on giving!

Jim Poulter
Client Services Director

Guess the national debt...

...now guess agai...

...and ag...

Just found this from Coffee House - The Spectator's blog. It's scary stuff.