[MUSIC] We're here at Old Mutual with the head of marketing, Helen Casey. And Old Mutual's just gone through some significant changes, which we're here to discuss today. Helen, you're going through some significant changes and many of them are brand related. But, you said a real catalyst in the whole process was this issue of purpose. Brand, purpose are they one and the same? How do they relate to each other? >> They absolutely do relate to one another. But, your brand is how you go to market, it's what your customers see. And your positioning might be slightly different to your purpose, depending on where you are, and which markets, and which target customers you're trying to attract. Your purpose is the core reason for your business being there, and I think we lost a little bit of that. We've kind of got focused on other things besides our customers. So it was really important that internally people understood why we were here. So we went through a big exercise, taking everyone along on that journey, and I think when we got to the end of it, there was a strong sense of yes, this is true to who we are and it's something that we are proud of and can deliver. Also, for us, we're a service brand. If people don't understand internally what experience they need to deliver, and if you can't, if you don't have a purpose, it's really hard to anchor it around anything. So, again, understanding what behaviors needed to to be developed to people deliver on it was very important. >> So you said that you lost sight of your purpose in some sense. What were the forces at work? How does one lose sight of your purpose? >> Well, I think what happened was we had a very strong purpose. We had started in South Africa as a life assurance, a mutual company, 170 years ago. But we had listed in London, and I think that kind of changed the dynamic over time. So that listing only happened in 1999. But straightaway, you were into quarterly reporting, looking at numbers, and I think along the way that is what caused us to sort of lose our purpose a bit. So in some areas we were still very strong, but in other areas people would say things like, this company's lost its soul. We focus on shareholders and not the customer or the adviser. >> How does one rediscover one's purpose or find one's soul again? >> Well, there are a number of issues that drove that. One was the market crash. So suddenly, all financial services, companies were looking at what they stood for. Regulation came into play, as well as the Internet. On the other side we also had, we sold a company and we needed to rebrand the remainder of that company. So those two forces, internal and external helped drive it. So how we did it was in a number of different ways, actually. One was really understanding where the business wanted to go to, so what the business strategy was. The other one was looking at our heritage, and that's really, really important, because any purpose has to be true to who you are as a company. And then we did workshops throughout the business, so in all our different areas. We got people together, got them to unpack what they thought the purpose was, but also looking at competitors. And that kind of arranged the old world app into our brand promise. >> So what is the brand promise, and how does it apply to your consumer and your business to business markets? >> So our brand promise is about enabling positive futures. So it's about how we as a company help people make the most of their life. I think what's also really important is we went into a vision exercise when 2008 happened. Because, as I said, we had lost sight of the customer. And I think for the first time in a long time the customer came back into our vision. So that was a lead into the brand promise of enabling positive futures. >> Helen, lots of different parts. We have the customer experience, we have the purpose, the vision, how does it all hang together? >> It was actually a three step process that we went through. So after the 20008 crisis, we redefined our vision, which was all about becoming our customer's most trusted partner. That was a really important framing of what we needed to do. And that actually helped us define the brand strategy and the business strategy out of that as well, out of the vision. We had looked at our values, and our values are very similar to what a lot of company's values are. So, we redefined those in terms of behaviors, and we call them our act now behaviors. These six behaviors, that's a term underneath it. But they were more clearly articulated than the values, because values like respect and integrity. But what does that action mean for a lot of people? So that was the next step and that was really important in terms of helping to start drive the culture internally, and one of those values is about customer first. Now, again, it may seem a bit silly, you might go well obviously the customer's first. But in our business it was very intermediary driven and so it was all about the advisor. So this is not saying that advisors are not important, and I think that is quite important because there was a little bit of confusion with some people around that, but it is saying actually at the end of the day we are looking after people's money. It is the for their time and their children's education. We need to take that into account. And then the third part was actually defining the brand promise and making sure that that came to last. So we had something that could be articulated properly and that we could go to market with. Now, under that, they refer the behaviors that we define, because we said we wanted the experience to be easy. We wanted customers to feel valued, and we wanted them to have peace of mind. So then, we needed to unpack that and say, what were the behaviors that sat underneath that? >> And I assume at that point your people actually understood what you meant by those more abstract terms in terms of values and the act now behaviors. >> Absolutely, and I think a lot of things where it was workshop-ing it with people using examples and stories to bring that to life in different ways. We also created workshops and tool kits to help people to go through that. If I'm perfectly honest, I think we did some things really well, and some areas quite well. In other areas it wasn't as great. I think we would have been better if we'd had a more formal program that rolled it out. Because the businesses were at different stages, we allowed the businesses to dictate the roll out process. >> So when you say the businesses are different stages, are those different business units? Is this part of being part of a global company where you have different challenges and different states in different markets? >> Absolutely. So we do have different business units in terms of different territories, also sometimes different types of businesses. So in some of our businesses are more investment, others are more, and it depends, I'm sorry, also on the target market. So some businesses more sort of retail math. Also starting out, they might be smaller. Or we've acquired a company and now the businesses are far more established. I think the big difference was perhaps in the North and South, so in South Africa far more established business. And it was about refocusing the brand there. In the North it was about rebranding and getting people to understand what this new purpose was. And that's still a journey that's going on the moment. >> So when you talk about rebranding you rebranded from Scandia because that business was split off to Old Mutual. Did that help the process? To what degree did rebranding play a role in this process? >> Actually it's helped the process a lot, so it was quite interesting. So when we started with this, the wealth business, because there were so many other things that were happening in their business and they were acquiring different companies, acquiring a wealth management company, acquiring a intermediary company. Lots of different things happening there. I think they didn't have the bandwidth to deal with a lot of this, so yes they went through it but add up in a much lighter touch. Now they're ready to take it on board and the rebranding really helped because suddenly you've got this fresh coat of paint, it's all shiny and new. And people are saying this is great, so what do we stand for? So they've been doing workshops on becoming Old Mutual Wealth, what does it actually mean, and driving further. And what's been really great there is the leader of that business, Paul Feeney, is passionate about this, passionate about having a strong purpose and making it come to life. So that's been fantastic because if you don't have that, it's so hard to get it to roll out to all the employees. It becomes a little bit of wallpaper. In the South, I'd say that was a different story. That was about refocusing and getting people to understand, go back to what the business had actually stood for. And what's been really good is, when we look at our culture survey which measures how well we're doing in terms of people living their act now behaviors. You get really great comments coming back from that business. People sort of saying, being really proud of what they do. >> So it's, we talked about culture. We'll come back to the issue of, that's really the domain of human resources. But you mentioned measurement. How do you measure the success? So, one side is the culture change, how else? What are some of the key metrics you are looking at to see how well you are doing in this process? >> So that's actually been a big driver actually of culture itself. If you don't measure it, there will be some people that'll get passionate and they'll do it, and other people will go back to business as usual. So, having the measures in place has made a big difference. So we used to look at a lot of financial measures, and those were the ones that went to the board and the ex co's. We introduced a lot more customer measures, brand measures, digital measures and obviously, the culture measures as well. And these things get taken to things like how group exco and people go through it in detail as opposed to, that's something that the marketing team does or the HR team does. >> And how did the relationship between marketing and HR change, if at all? >> So I think that's been an interesting lesson, an interesting journey for me as well. So I think sometimes marketing wants to hold onto all things brand, and it's like, this is our territory. And it doesn't work, unless you work closely with HR. Your internal coms teams to help drive that. Because those are often people who are much closer to employees, and making sure the message goes across in the right way. So I think that relationship is always a slightly fractious relationship in many companies, but I think it has gotten much better. >> Concretely, has there been any change in the governing structure of what the brand is about, or have your processes changed? Your ways of working? >> So we have changed, we have stronger governance over some of these things, and I think that, again, sort of measurement and helps drive behavior. What we've become much better at, not perfect at, but as cross functional teams. And working, taking where the experts are and working together to make sure something comes to life. As opposed to it just being this department or that department. It is something we're also trying to drive throughout our business. Because one of the big things about brand is making sure that the value proposition that goes to the end customer delivers on what the brand is all about. And that can also only be done if they're cross-functional teams working together. >> Helen, you've been talking about a lot of the things you do which have a top down flavor, but ultimately it's the advisors at the culface that deliver value to the customers. How have you engaged them and how have you communicated this process to them? >> Well it's quite a difficult one to do and it's quite important that you do it correctly though. Advisors aren't interested in the theory of branding or the process that you went through. So there's a really good example of how marketing actually drove something that absolutely delivered on the brand promise, but resulted in sales for the advisor. And it was all about focusing on a process where an advisor can talk to the customer about their dreams and hopes and how the advisor, and through planning, could help them reach that. So that absolutely talks to enabling positive futures, but it was done in a way that an advisor felt comfortable with. Surprisingly, we got great sales out of it, because there was no new product there. It was just a different process, and it was a, if you think about it, slightly more fluffy process talking about people's dreams and hopes. But really successful. And what we also did was, in this particular instance, we actually went to where customers were, and a lot of customers were in places like coffee shops. That took them out of a formal environment. And even out of that we still managed to get really good sales. We actually had someone write up a big deal in a coffee shop. >> Maybe the last question, where do you go from here? You're how long into the journey, and how long will it last? >> Well I think the journey's ongoing, and I think you have to keep on reminding people about why this is important, I think it's very easy for people to go, tick, job done. We track our brand on a yearly basis. We track culture on a yearly basis. So, it's really important that we keep it fresh. The other thing which is really important is our competitors aren't staying still. We might congratulate ourselves and go, well this is great, we've done this. But our competitors are changing, as well as our customers. They wanting things and they wanting things delivered in a different way. Also, as I said, our wealth business in the UK was at a different stage of development. So, they're doing a lot of work now looking at what's important for them. So, I think it's an ongoing process. It's constantly measuring it, looking at it, and making sure that we remain fresh and relevant for our customers and for our employees. >> Thank you very much for your time Helen. [MUSIC]
