Pension Pusher

His mission? To build the brand of the pensions and investment company formerly known as Scottish Equitable. He chose to accept it, but as he says, in some ways it feels like the longest year of his life, while in some ways it also feels like the shortest. So, needless to say, he’s been kept busy.

Clode’s relaxed and inviting personality is perhaps at odds with the stereotypical image of the finance sector. Indeed, Clode is welcoming and surprisingly bullish despite all the doom and gloom currently surrounding the economy.

“I’m having a great time,” he says. “This is probably the best job I’ve ever had.”

He is clearly under no illusions about the enormity of the task he faces building the AEGON brand at a time when the public’s trust in finance companies has never been lower. Another challenge he must conquer, if he is to succeed, is to push the subject of pensions and investments for the future higher up the list of people’s priorities - not easy at a time when most people are struggling simply to keep their heads above water.

“There are nine million people in the workforce that have no provision for their pension; 40% of people in defined contribution schemes have got fund value of less than £10,000. That will generate maybe £500 a year. There are lots of people who are disengaged with this part of financial services, so, we have a job as part of the financial capability work.”

He continues: “People are looking more at the now and how they pay their fuel bills and feed their kids and so inevitably longer term savings will get knocked down the agenda. I really hope that there is more of long term adjustment with people looking to the long term.”

disengaged

Clode says that this company and its rivals have a role to play in communicating with those ‘disengaged’ from the sector to communicate the need to look to the future and highlight the financial hardships they may face in years to come if they don’t.

“The first task that we have as AEGON is to actually let the world know that we are here. One of the problems that we have is that people are not familiar with us and if they are not familiar with us then they’re not going to be favourable towards us. My view is that we ought to get ourselves to a position where, over a period of time, people proactively say ‘I’m not sure which AEGON product I want but, it will be an AEGON product.”

Since Clode joined the company, AEGON has been a good client for many Scottish marketing and digital companies, working alongside Newhaven, Story, Line, McIntosh Design and Melville & Young among others.

Last month, the decision was made to consolidate its marketing with The Leith Agency becoming the company’s advertising agency on an initial two year basis following a three way pitch.

While many assumed this was a cut in the company’s marketing spend with all the problems taking place in the economy, Clode denies this, stating that it was, in fact, to ensure that a consistency and understanding of the brand would be ensured if kept within one agency.

“At the moment The Leith is in discovery mode and they’re learning more about us. There’s a job to be done to bring together our external communications, our sponsorship opportunities and use that to really start building the brand. This is a great opportunity for Leith to do it and it’s a different task for them as they are coming on board as we are saying ‘we are big into sports marketing’ it’s an integral part of our communications message, so it’s quite a difficult task that they have.”

He also indicates that a similar consolidation may be undertaken in terms of its digital output: “We have a relationship with a number of different digital agencies and I’d like to see that brought together and obviously Leith has a digital capability too,” Clode explains.

“What I’d like to see is the whole story that you get being more tactical. Instead of campaign by campaign, for every pound that we spend on AEGON promoting a particular product or campaign, we want to be getting £2 worth of value. We need to be promoting that product and we need to be building the brand so we need to take a more strategic point of view and that applies to the relationships you have. You can’t go to one agency for one thing, another for another and another for something else, it all becomes very fragmented. It has been fragmented so bringing this together is just part of an actual process. We need to decide how we get ourselves in a position where we have got all our ducks in one row really.”

TENNIS

As Clode says another significant move made by the brand recently to shift perceptions of the brand among consumers was the announcement that it is to become the sponsor of British Tennis. The five year deal will begin next summer and will mean that the AEGON brand will be prominent at several of the sport’s high profile events including the newly branded AEGON Championship to be held at the Queen’s Club in London, the AEGON Classic at the Priory Club and the AEGON International in Devonshire Park. As well as this, an initiative with the British Tennis Association will look to promote the sport throughout the UK which will see AEGON reach a more youthful demographic.

The topic clearly enthuses Clode, even though he admits to not necessarily being a huge tennis fan himself. Although, he points out, he conducted some big football sponsorship deals while at Nationwide, and has no affection for that sport either.

On the day of the announcement at the AEGON offices, a tennis court was chalked onto the company lawn to build up curiosity among the staff who were also fed strawberries and cream at lunchtime, à la Wimbledon.

“There are different types of properties that have appeal in sports marketing and we wouldn’t have taken any deal. There are lots of shirts on the market [AEGON is the official sponsor of Dutch football side Ajax.] We’re not looking for any old deal to get our logo onto a shirt, we were looking for something that was inclusive, it had naming rights and it needed to have stature. So it’s all very well having a schools programme or a parks programme, but actually what you can be seen as is as an also-ran in the minor leagues.

BIG PICTURE

“You’ve got to get the big picture across and if you look at the Queens Tournament last year when it was branded up with Stella Artois, the whole of the court environment is red. You couldn’t miss the brand. We hope next year the whole of the court is AEGON Blue with our brand dominating each of the court ends.”

The huge sponsorship marketing deal has taken up more of the marketing budget than ever before, but it is AEGON’s plan that over the course of the deal the brand profile will grow, increase its reach through photography and references in newspapers and on terrestrial TV where commentators will refer to the company alongside the competitions.

“There are not too many brands which are clean,” Clode responds when asked as to how the brand and the sport will mutually benefit. “We don’t come to this with any sort of baggage, there’s no big scandal sitting in the background. We’re not promoting alcohol or gambling or tobacco, we’re about helping people build their futures for themselves, which is quite a good fit. I don’t think there are many brands which come new to rights holders and say ‘we’re here and we’re serious about building our brand.”

The current financial climate will make the growth of the brand all the more difficult, especially in gaining the trust of the disenfranchised general public, something that Clode is entirely aware of, but he feels that the company’s competitors such as AXA, Standard Life, Aviva and Standard Life will also find it tough.

As to whether he believes a reduction in marketing activity in the financial sector is likely to take place, he says it is likely to vary across the board with some increasing their spend in order to keep awareness with customers high, while others will look to take a backwards step for a period.

“These things take a bit of time to hit home and everyone will be a little more cautious and, to be honest, that’s where your opportunity comes. When you see a bandwagon coming that’s the best time to drop off it. For us, we are trying to build a long term brand and there is a problem at the moment, but does that mean that we should hold back in terms of our long term strategy? Competitors will inevitably be squeezed and you’ll see maybe less investment in brand building activity.”

Time will tell with AEGON as to whether the company will end up a big fish in the big British financial pond, but it seems that while other financial companies are looking for a period of stability after all that has happened, here is a company looking to the future with a great deal of encouragement.

If Clode’s genuine enthusiasm and optimism is merited, it might have very little to worry about, Clode could well accomplish his mission.