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with Insight Investment's David Chellew - Part 1 · Two in Twenty

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to another episode of 2 in 20, the podcast brought to you by the Alpha Agency team.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Twig Field, and today I'm talking to David Chalu, who is the head of marketing at Insight Investment.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: I always love talking to David.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: I find that I'm learning constantly and really interested by his view of the world and thinking about his team, the value of his team, how they manage their stakeholders, the sort of data that they're using, and the way that they are influencing within the business.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's a vast amount in this.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm afraid we're gonna have to probably break it into two parts.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Please forgive me for breaking our own structure, but I really think it's worth it to get to some of the depth of insight from David.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: So over to that conversation with him.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: David, welcome.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: It is great to talk to you today.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Before we get stuck into some questions, as I normally kick these conversations off, perhaps you could just give us a quick view of your career to date and then we can get stuck into some other questions.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, Twain.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, lovely to be here.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, just to give you a bit of background on me, I did, for my sins, a degree in financial services.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: I was was sponsored to go to university by a company called Scandia Life, which I think is old mutual these days.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: But they essentially designed the degree course I did and offered a placement a year and a job at their institution, which I was extremely grateful for at that time.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: What's not to like about that?
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: So that gave me uh the initial grounding in finance, and obviously because it involved roles at um Scandia at the time.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: It was my first dip into investment communications.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I was writing something which in those days, for those of you that are of the older persuasion, was called the uh Scandia Informer, which went out to about 30,000 advisors in the UK.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then in their wisdom, which was actually extremely wise and fortunate for my career, they put me in a project office, and I spent a couple of years in the projects function, essentially organizing the critical path for infrastructure and all sorts of projects across Scandia.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it gave me a bit of an introduction into marketing, and it also gave me an introduction into know one end of a Gantt chart from the other, and to think about things like project costs and organization and um how to set milestones, basically planning activity at scale, which was great.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I moved on from there, I went to work for Kutsinko, which I'm sure many people are aware of what they do, so they had pr private banking.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Then I came into asset management.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: I worked for Merrill Lich Investment Managers at the time, and then moved from there in an investment communications role.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: I moved from there, I wanted to become a product specialist, so I moved to Deutsche, and I was a fixed-income product specialist for what, three years, four years, which I really enjoyed getting out in front of clients talking about different types of investment strategy.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then I moved with a team of people to HSBC Asset Management, and I was there for about 10 years on the wholesale marketing side in the UK, and um after about halfway through that career, I moved into the global team and then into the wealth function at HSBC, so intermediated retail, and did that and a big number of big projects there for a few years, and then in 2013 um I took the role at Insight.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: So went from a sort of big wholesale, well-known banking franchise into a sort of specialist investment management, purist, institutional-only investment business.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: And the the career path for me was quite obvious then in that I'd accrued a lot of wholesale market experience and wanted to plug the institutional side because I I knew frankly enough about marketing, but not enough about how um pure institutional businesses work.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and Insight is obviously a great place for that.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: So uh it was a good career move for me.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: I love that because I think having been in the role as a product specialist aw as well to really bring that sort of technical knowledge alongside the sort of broader marketing expertise isn't something that necessarily everybody has had the exposure to or experience of.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So no doubt in Insight, you're really leveraging that sort of deep expertise around the kind of product set, particularly in the institutional space.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps I could lead that through because I was thinking being a pure play, more institutional house.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Often people would have the perception that marketing has a much more limited role within that type of an organization.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd be really curious to hear how you think of marketing's role and remit, uh and maybe how you're sort of challenging some of those perceptions.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it is an interesting one, and I think that um sort of segment based view has got a a bit old um in recent times.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, firstly, just because there's always a client at the end of every conversation, is just to what extent that client is advised.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: The channels don't really differ hugely, and obviously most of the industry is working with professional clients of some form or another, whether they be advisors or investment consultants or pension schemes or financial advice firms.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's all B2B and it's all technical marketing to uh to an intermediary.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I so we work with a professional audience, we obviously do quite broad range institutional, but a lot of there's a lot of subadvisory and all sorts of relationships involved with that.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: So very linked into the financial services ecosystem more generally.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: The only thing in an institutional business that if you were going to generalize that is really different is that you just apply the marketing mix in a in a slightly different way.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: But that um you should be customized as a marketer, you should be customising your use of marketing tools to the environment you're in anyway, based on you know engagement with all the stakeholders in the business you're working for, and understanding that plan.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: So on the on the institutional side, I think that to make a generalization is there's less focus on promotional advertising, but otherwise the mix is absolutely is no different, to be honest.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's really about how you choose to connect um the strategy for marketing into the business and into the client base where it adds value for that particular business, and it's not going to be the same in any two organizations, let alone different channels.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, and it's interesting that point around connecting the marketing strategy into the business strategy, that synchronization, and I guess again, maybe some sort of old, outdated thinking from my part, really, that you know, marketing isn't necessarily seemed to be that muscular in in those institutional businesses, but actually in the hands of the right people that are engaging deeply within the business to align the marketing strategy to the business strategy, that stakeholder piece in the right hands is gonna really make make the difference as to kind of whether kind of marketing is round the table and marketing is delivering against the business goals as a whole.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean that the impact varies widely, but any business is going to have a goal to retain its existing client base.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna have a goal to make that client base as happy as possible and make their experience really good, because you know, it's more likely that they will increase their advocacy for a business if the if the quality of what they receive is good, and then they become advocates for the word of mouth for in terms of word of mouth to other similar organizations.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other piece is on the um the distribution side and then dealing with prospects.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, every business has got a commercial plan and they're looking to progress that commercial plan, and obviously marketing support that.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um and obviously this the the group of stakeholders involved, obviously clients first, but colleagues have a view, the executive management have a view, and they look at it from a different point of view depending on what their discipline is.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you've got uh sort of quite a broad range of opinions to look at and reconcile, and that they won't all be the same.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: So as a marketer, you've got to sort of aggregate those perceptions in a way that's logical.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you don't know where you're starting from, you don't know where you don't know where to go.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like that is the way that I sort of normally try and define it, which really comes down to basically first assessing, well, what do those stakeholders, what are they aware of that marketing does?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Do they perceive it positively?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if they were asked to score it, how would they score it?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: And what's um what in terms of what they currently receive and and what would they like that's not being delivered that they see competitors doing?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because everyone's got a view from the outside world and they've all got those influences communicating with them every day, so they will have a developed view.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: So what I typically do is go out and just create a record of those opinions for different stakeholders, and then create a dashboard that actually just gives me a current state.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: And if I've got that, that will indicate to me where is there a service that's perceived that um but there's room for improvement in that, and then where is a service either missing or a a stakeholder isn't aware of what they could do if they deployed marketing to solve their business problem, and that's when you start to create a map that gives you an indicative direction in terms of what do you want to build and what do you want to prioritize because obviously there's you know as well as I do, Twink, there's a very broad range of things that you could do and and a very broad range of opinions, but what you've got to do in the end is align with the business strategy and the commercial targets to establish something that makes sense, but do that in the context of the marketing services that you currently provide, um, where they're perceived to be.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously the only thing I've not mentioned is is external benchmarking, which is important to do because that there are lots of sources out there in terms of how does any organization stack up against its closest perceived competitors.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: So on the impact of marketing, it's really important to assess well where are you today, and actually for for the people providing those perceptions, what moves the dial for them in terms of what they're seeing from the competitors that are not seeing from you.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: So you can essentially focus in on those services to align what you're doing and then retest and re-benchmark to confirm whether what you changed actually made an impact.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: I love that, that sense of um scorecard, if you like, of your internal stakeholders to really establish with clarity the priorities, the kind of the problem statements, and then very clearly being able to demonstrate the value of marketing, you know, traveling along that path to deliver against those that those clear goals and issues.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I love that.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm definitely uh gonna take some of that away with me, I think.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean, David, for the team?
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was just thinking again, when I kind of coming from a sort of outside in perspective, looking at insight um and the way that you kind of frame those conversations with stakeholders is really interesting.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think also the team dynamic as well, in that my sense is that very senior stakeholders with kind of real leadership in their area, and again, maybe just slightly at odds with some expectations of an institutional business that m marketing may not be at the forefront.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, how does that kind of align to very senior marketers in their in their area and remiss?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I just thought maybe you could expand on that, and that maybe it's also explains a bit of the earlier point around stakeholder management.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean uh and to be honest, like I would partly refer to my previous answer because like when you've established what stakeholders want and what they perceive from the current services, that is pretty much giving you a guide for well, how well are you delivering against that?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it's um and to be honest, that gives you an indication of where you might need to retool the team and enhance certain things and and what you're gonna focus on to improve it.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's less about seniority for me because you know, marketing uh you want to create an environment where essentially the the most recent thing that you've delivered is is the standing of the whole team.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um and actually, like within a marketing function, if one team stands out as being very good at the expense of the others, it doesn't help.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's what what you want is balance across the functions, and you want marketers to be able to look to other areas expertise and and value it and appreciate it for what that team delivers because it essentially underpins all collaboration.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: If you create an environment where teams see their own value, firstly it helps their motivation, but also um if they see value in the teams around them, they're much better at collaborating and actually understanding what services can the rest of marketing provide into me that improve my output.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because if if I was to look at any of the components in my teams, they're nothing without the other teams.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, what um impact for the audience is really about how effectively the areas coordinate with one another to deliver a result that delivers the right outcome for the recipient, and that means treatment by multiple areas.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, to give you a couple of practical examples, if if I had an amazing content team, which I do, but the digital team was ineffective, well, no one would know because the digital team transmit their content.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that would be a short conversation.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: If I had a um a fantastic sort of institutional pipeline team, which I do, that organized all of the pitch process and and new business RFPs and things like that, but actually the the content and digital side wasn't as good.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'd have a big mismatch between new business process and the services provided to existing clients, and that wouldn't work either.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it's um and that that creates, I think when marketing teams struggle, it's because they get pulled from pillar to post because of lack of sort of structural definition across the areas, or those areas being out of sync with one another where part of it delivers but another part doesn't.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: And what that does is extends all your deadlines.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: So if you are have a mantra to be to have urgency in execution, your execution will fall down because of the coordination.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's if it's if it's about skills and expertise within an individual team, well fine, you can fix that and how the workloads are allocated and things like that.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: But if you've got a problem with the sync or some areas being up to standard and others not, well that's it takes a lot longer to solve that problem.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously, any team as well, it needs the right supporting infrastructure, it needs focus in its target priorities, um because without those it's then very difficult.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: So you might get collaboration, but you get it on the wrong things because the priorities aren't set clearly.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: So what we try and do is just make sure that each team is tooled with what it needs, it gets supportive infrastructure, it gets definition and in the priorities and targets, so the groups know what they're aiming for, and then we pick out the key points of collaboration across areas, and then we go through those specifically so we can make sure that basically there is a sync across the department, and obviously then we've got the KPIs to back that up so the teams know how they've performed, what they've delivered against, and then what the response of the target audience was to that, which is really important because most people in marketing roles they just want to know back to your original question that their job contributes in a practical way to the business's strategy and that their work gets highlighted and it ranks.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Once you get that, it's just repeating that model.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that, I'm afraid, is the end of part one of this conversation.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna cut in here around the 20 minute mark.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: There will be part two coming very soon where we carry on the conversation and get into more depth.