18. Mission Impossible: Mastering the Regulatory Riddle

Welcome to Unicorny, the antidote to post rationalized business books. This podcast helps you find out how senior executives, just like you, are building value through marketing. Each episode gives you an insider's perspective of critical marketing issues. We explore why our guests make the decision they make, how they build and measure value and what they see coming down the road. In this episode, we're going to shine a light on what is often considered to be the less sexy end of marketing the financial sector. Conservative with a small C, heavily regulated and without a tangible product, marketing in this sector is often considered to be Mission Impossible. But is it? Lion Trust's chief Marketing officer Simon Hildrey joins us today to talk turkey about Mission Impossible. Lion Trust is a specialist fund management company that takes pride in having a distinct culture and a distinct approach to running money.

The company launched in 1995 and was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1999. They're an independent business with no corporate parent and their head office is on the strand now. Also joining me today on our journey deep into the vaults of the financial sector is an expert cohost in Jeff Watt. Jeff is Managing Director of Green Target, which is the city of London's finest financial service communications consultancy. And Jeff has 25 years experience in the financial sector, so he is the perfect cohost for today's topic. So, Simon, thank you. And welcome to the Unicorny studio. Why don't you start off by introducing us to the marketing team at Lion Trust?

So at the moment, we've got just over 20 people, about 21, 22 people. I've been running the marketing now for about 14 years, but I've kind of evolved it and it's developed and evolved over time, which has partly come out of experimenting with ways of running the team. What we have is really a team of specialists that we've grouped together. We've got six effectively five or six sub teams and they're the specialists in their areas. And then we put that together to deliver what I think is some really quality work. What we don't have is at the moment is channel marketeers. So we are set up slightly differently from many other marketing teams in our sector, in the asset management, how involved.

In the business is the marketing department? And one of the things we try and get under the skin of on this podcast is like, a lot of departments are set up to do promotion stuff. Do you dig deeper than that? Are you integrated in strategy and part of the revenue operations?

We see ourselves as a revenue generator and not a cost center. I know this is something that's often talked about marketing. I think obviously we do cost money, we have a significant budget, but we are there to be part of the sales effort. In effect, we're there to definitely, obviously help the sales team and every other department but our key approach is to be proactive as well with marketing. And actually we're at the heart of the business actually. We are responsible for communications, we are responsible for events and we are responsible obviously for all the normal marketing activity. We're part of the Plc communications as well. I don't see communications and marketing as being different and I know that is talked about, is it communications, is it earned, is it owned? But I see it as all part of one team and I think that's been one of the strengths of Lion Trust is how aligned all the different departments are and how much is grouped together within departments I think is a real strength.

The title of this episode of course is Mission Impossible because marketing and communicating in very highly regulated markets is tough and particularly if the product isn't tangible. So let's kick off by trying to bust some myths I think. What are some of the myths surrounding marketing in a regulated space? Like what can and can't you do? How do you check what you're doing is compliant and that kind of stuff.

Some of it is you should do the right thing anyway. And I think the way that you talk about product, the way you talk about investment, the way you promote it should be in the right way anyway. It should be simple to understand, should be understandable accessible and it shouldn't be promoting things that aren't true. I mean that's obvious and I think regulation is the right thing and we're very aware of how you'll comply. We've got a very good compliance department that we work very closely with but as marketeers we should be aware of that anyway and there shouldn't be an issue that then compliance picks up that means we're not succeeding. I actually think being a former journalist helps. I think I was very aware of that as a journalist and I think that is actually good training, good background and we are very close to the compliance department.

I think things like social media there are certain restrictions in the way that we can promote on social media but I don't feel it stops us achieving what we want to do.

Presumably channels, digital channels, social media channels will allow you to communicate more directly with customers anyway. So does that potentially limit the chance of falling foul of things because you can make things much more personalized? Is there an element of truth in that?

It can actually be a positive as well. One issue you've got is if you promote on LinkedIn, that is primarily for business audience but it's actually open to anyone, therefore you have to promote it in a way that's acceptable for retail private investors. But if you target people through social media there is a possibility that you can target only professionals and you know there are only professionals therefore it gives you scope actually to tailor that promotion to the different audiences. The one caveat I would say is obviously which we will get onto is international marketing. You're dealing with different audiences. Some funds can be promoted to countries and not others. So that's one thing where you have to think more about promotion and marketing and it deals with websites as well. You have to make certain funds accessible to certain countries and not other countries.

And that's where it gets more complicated. And of course, foreign languages, you have to translate much more. So we're getting into that world.

It's interesting. You've got different audiences and you've got professional advisors, things you can say to them, you can't say direct to retail investors. I know you're using the professional advisor distribution channel, but there are different things you can say to them, one group that you can't say to others. Or do you see that differently as well?

I see that more as a positive, actually, for marketing because we want to give different messages in the sense of for a professional audience, you might want to give a more in depth technical access to more in depth technical. I think our biggest job is to give people choice of the type of information, the format we give it and the level of technical detail. And it's really for the individual to choose and we make that accessible. We don't know. It shouldn't be our job to say you should read this, you shouldn't read that. And I think within the regulatory framework, we should give that choice and that's a key for us going forward.

Lion Trust super successful now, but when we did our research call, you mentioned that hadn't always been the case, that there'd been a bit of a blip along the way. Can you talk to me a little about that? What happened? How did you overcome the problems? How did you make sure marketing was kind of at the heart of rebuilding the company?

Well, it was actually just after I first joined and a very different company in some ways. We've kept a lot of the culture over the years. We had a couple of departures of our managers and really we've rebuilt from then from really effectively from 2010 when John Irons was chief executive. The marketing has changed substantially over that time and we created a brand over that period of time, a really distinctive brand, and we've really developed the marketing of the firm. But the whole industry's changed in many ways in marketing. And I think John's had a clear vision from day one, had a clear strategy. And marketing has been helping to drive and achieve that strategy. And John's mission has been to build really good quality investment capability, really strong distribution, sales and marketing, and having the business infrastructure to support that and make that possible.

And we've had a real focus on sales and marketing over that time.

Okay. And I think we're going to dig in a little bit later to some of the branding work that you've done and some of the things you've done that are atypical for financial services sector when you're talking about we've done that we've built a brand, what kind of channels have you used to help build the brand?

I think the starting point is what you stand for and what you're trying to achieve and how you want that brand positioning the brand really is a very accessible, friendly brand and one that can be trusted and we've tried to communicate and engage different audiences. One of the things we've really focused on is marketing to the consumer market. Now, this has always been around supporting the intermediary market and the fact that all professionals are consumers as well and you can reach them in that way as well as the usual professional route both through sales and marketing. And we've really wanted to support the intermediary market with their clients and to try to communicate in a much clearer way.

You're talking to both an intermediary audience and you're talking to the consumers, the ultimate buyer of your product. So it's an interesting challenge for you that you are, as I say, talking to two different audiences but with very personalized messages. And so when you're thinking about your marketing, you're thinking about the end user as well as the intermediary and treating them slightly differently but being aware that one is clearly influencing the other.

Yeah, absolutely. And we deliver communication to intermediaries to use with their clients as well.

So you help them.

So we're helping them in terms of informing and educating their I mean, I come back to this a lot. It's not dissimilar to journalism at all and I think one of the things I perhaps was surprised about early on was how similar marketing is to journalism. You need to understand the market, you need to understand the audience, you need to understand what you're promoting and be able to communicate and communicate in different ways. And it's like you write differently for different publications. Absolutely. And it's a very similar thing. So I found it quite easy as a concept early on to grasp that and to try and deliver. And then it's about having the right quality people to deliver.

That one of the interesting challenges, I've always thought, with asset management businesses is perhaps a competitive tension between the brand building of the company as well as building the brands of the individuals who are managing money. How does that balance work in an organization like yours or generally, how do you promote one and the other to keep that balance aligned as such?

Well, part of our brand is that each team has their own distinct approach to running money to invest in their funds. So that is actually part of our brand.

Right.

We're presenting clients with what we think is high quality investment capability and it's for them to choose which approach they like and therefore I think it's and the brand is the framework of that. And part of that is that investment choice, each team has very strong processes, investment processes. And that's part of what we're delivering. The company and the investment managers, it all goes together as one brand. It should be agree brands and I think the teams, the funds, they create their own brand in a sense of awareness, but it sits within the corporate brand and the corporate identity. Absolutely. And the approach that we take are.

We talking here about the kind of the superstar fund manager, the very high profile they all seem to crash somehow. Well, cases recently of very well indeed, they've gone wonky.

Yeah. And of course the performance of an individual will have an impact on the perception of a brand. So it is that balance I think is an interesting one to try and strike. And maybe an organization like Simon's has to face that more than lots of other financial institutions where you really do have high profile individuals who are associated with investment and with investment performance. And if it does crash or if they leave, how does that impact on the brand? What happens to investors who may walk away as a result?

And there's two things to say to that. One is our belief in process without getting too into investment. That focus on process is really important and therefore the fund managers stick to that process and the clients understand how they manage money. So they understand part of our job is to communicate this when they're likely to perform, when they may not perform. And so that's really poor. So when they're putting their portfolios together they can understand that. And that's a really key part of the brand. The other thing is each of the teams are teams and they've built those teams over time. So it's not just one individual.

So when we start talking about the process, we're actually talking about the P product, of course. How involved is your team in kind of the other marketing P's at Lion Trust is there I suppose pricing is completely irrelevant in this context, but do you get involved in channel at all other than communication?

I mean, it's very joined up at Liontrust in terms of the different departments working together. So it's very collegiate and I think we all input into that and then we all implement it together. So I think in that sense, yes, we are all part of that discussion and we will feed into that and certain departments will have more input than others on certain issues. But we're all part of that discussion and we're all part of that decision making process. Yes.

I think brand in your line of work, Simon, of course, is when you have what might be considered maybe incorrectly an homogeneous product, brand is really important to provide some point of differentiation. There are lots of elements to that. We've touched on maybe individual fund managers and processes. But that brand piece is really when, as maybe we've said, it feels a bit homogeneous and obscure. That brand piece is so important in terms of selling and then building. Loyalty and customers staying with you.

Yeah, and picking up on a point that was mentioned earlier. The intangible product. As we know, if you make watches, you make cars, you've got the product can help sell and help the brand. Trying to stand out when you're running investment management is difficult. Key thing about brand is it's not just about imagery. I think a lot of people think of brand. It's what imagery you use. It's the design. It's everything you do, including the word. And as a former journalist, obviously, I really care about the words and the tone, and we really are very careful about the wording we use and the tone and the messaging is really part of the brand and then it's everybody outline trust is part of the brand and it is a challenge to stand out. Absolutely. We've obviously gone down the distance. I think there's other brands that have done successfully distinguished.

And then there's lots of brands that I think probably don't stand out. And the research showed that's not just my view. That's through the and I think it's the consistency. I think the other thing I would say is the we've as John's had a vision. We've had a vision for marketing and we've evolved over time. We've never done a rebrand. I'm not keen on rebrands. I think you evolve a brand and it actually can look quite different, but people don't notice it. And you evolve it. And you take your clients, you take the staff with you along that journey. And I think it's that consistency is really important of what you stand for.

You sound like you're in a very fortunate position where you have a supportive, boss founder who believes in the whole marketing process, the imports of building the brand and investing in it over time, which must be a good place to be in that regard because that's not the case in every situation at all.

No, we are very supported by the CEO, CFO, the Board and other people at large. Trust. Yeah. And it's very in kind of DNA of lion Trust as well. And you do see that elsewhere where that hasn't been the case, and there's some asset managers who don't effectively have a marketing department at all. No, with consumer brands, marketing is absolutely key to their success. I've always looked at consumer brands. I think some people will if you're trying to look at how things are done, a lot of people will look at other asset managers. But I've always said we should look outside. Of that as well. There's things to learn from other asset managers, of course, but if you're a marketeer, you should be looking at all sorts of different companies approaches, and we look at other things as well. We look at other sport music.

I think you can take inspiration and ideas and thoughts and apply it to yourself from all sorts of places.

And of course, you've been involved directly in sport as a sponsor. Talk me through your experience with I.

Mean, Oxford was one, and I will talk about which, and we've had other sponsorships as well, but I think Oxford and we tried to take the same know from each of these asset managers have been involved in football, but it's not something that asset managers naturally have navigated to. The opportunity came up probably earlier than it was a thought in our minds, but the opportunity for Oxford came along and it was a massively successful three year sponsorship for us, actually. They got to Wembley twice, they got promoted, so that helps. But I remember when I pitched it to the board, I said, we need one good FA Cup run and this will be a fantastic sponsorship. The first season, they beat Swansea, who were then in the Premier League in the FA Cup, and they were on BBC News and ITV News that evening, and the back of every single national newspaper, pretty much.

But it went far beyond that. I think, even though Oxford were in modern day Currency League Two, the Fourth Division, and then got promoted to the third level, the awareness was incredible, actually. You get huge. But we worked really hard with Oxford. Oxford were great because they would work with us and they were very flexible and we worked together on ideas and we really engaged with the fan base and we did a lot of content. A key focus was content, and that goes through a lot of what we do. And we wanted exclusive content, which they gave us, and we worked with them on. And I think we showed that we didn't pretend to be Oxford fans, because weren't and we didn't try. And were very open about who we did support, who we do support. And we really engaged with the fans, and I think because football fans, and that's a really key part of any sponsorship as well.

Okay, I want to come back to community engagement in a minute. I'm just keen to ask, how did you choose Oxford? Why Oxford United?

We were introduced to Oxford by somebody we knew and they were looking for a sponsor, and we had the conversation. It moved pretty quickly. So I went to watch Oxford, we had some conversations, and I think one thing we do have successfully done over the years is move quite quickly. If we want to do something, we can make it happen pretty quickly. And so the time was short and we said, okay, we would do it. And I was keen for a free year deal because I knew it would take a year to really understand it, try things, and not a short term I didn't want a short term deal so we did three years and that was really successful.

I think it's fascinating that a brand which you would associate with being, well, it's international, you're looking for, particularly as will be looking for global audiences and talking to people globally. But actually, at that level, football is very much, as you said, grounded in the community. On the face, you think, how does that work? How is a local community brand going to support the aspirations of an international fund management group? But it clearly worked and I think it's a fascinating love it.

I think it's a great, really interesting.

And Oxford's obviously a global city on that level, and the long term benefits of this, you won the shirt and it's amazing how often that shirt appears on social media. It's obviously I better not mention any names, but you have football computer games and if you're on that shirt, you have a global audience. If you're producing content and it's original content and people want to watch it, that's a great source for digital and for social, and then you can measure it as well and you can get that engagement. And that's what digital does. It's that level of engagement you can achieve. And we really tried to support Oxford and the fans. We did various initiatives. For example, they were playing away at Carlisle and the travel budget was short, it was the end of the season, they needed to win, to go up, so we said, OK, we would give extra.

And we supported that. Them traveling by train, we got some content and it's things like never I've always wanted to really work with any partners that we work with, and I see it as a partnership. Everything we do, whether it's agencies or anything, they're partners and we're working together and we really wanted to work with Oxford for the mutual benefit and I've never wanted just to put a logo on something and then go, well, job know, you have to work together.

That's what you have to get value.

Yeah. And you have to work at it. And you have to invest more than just the pure sponsorship amount, but the rewards, the potential rewards are fantastic for both.

It's obviously a lasting that three year sponsorship, although the deal is over, it has a lasting impact, as you say. Has it a long tail because of the games and the content and the footage.

Yeah. And it carries with you because the vision is still the same. We've done other sports and we've really taken that community in terms of education, particularly, and as well as animal conservation. So it's really been financial education, numeracy opportunities for young people and animal conservation, that we've really looked at it's slightly.

As an aside, but I was going to say you can see with the power of football and what it can do. If you look at the case study of Rexam, what's happened more recently, it's a different type of it's an ownership deal. But look how that brand has gone global and the power it has with.

Well, people engage with sport, and I think they do. I think what we've tried to marketing and brand should be about emotion, it should be about real engagement and sport. People love sport, and I think you can engage at that on an emotional level. And then when they come to the investments, they go, oh, okay, I know Lime Trust, I trust. Like, it's that association and that trust and emotion that you really I think that's our job on whatever part of marketing we do. That's what we're trying to achieve. And I think exactly, football is so powerful, other sports are powerful, but football is particularly the global most popular sport in the world. And I think we've seen, again, evidence of that. Started marketing, we started advertising before Oxford in the sports pages of national newspapers, and we had a couple of ventures with a national newspaper where we did some activity around World Cup European Championships.

And you really realize how much, coming back to the point about consumers and professionals, how you really get awareness, build up with professionals as well. Because they read the sports page, they're.

Straight to the back pages, aren't they?

When we go on the back, the.

Natural assumption would be, I've got to be in the business pages, I've got to be in the trade, press, the financial pages for it to be effective. But in fact, you're saying completely, yeah.

And I think a couple follow up points when Oxford beat Swansea and were on the national news, it's the reinforcement. It's not just about reaching new people. The number of people that knew Lion Trust and then saw it and went, oh, they contact. Oh, we saw that you were sponsoring Oxford. It's that reinforcement as well. And it's only by trying these things that you learn more by doing them and what works and what doesn't work. And that reinforcement was really strong. And we've combined things most recently. So our latest sponsorship, we're sponsoring an emerging talent centre for girls and women footballers with Blackpool Community Trust, which is obviously under the own, which works with Blackpool Football Club. And we really wanted to find something that would give girls and women the opportunity to develop and a pathway the idea is it's a pathway towards ultimately the Lionesses.

And rather than sponsor a team, we felt that development we're kind of combining football, we're combining sport, we're combining given opportunities to people. And Blackpool felt a really good area for us to support as well, and it gives girls and women the opportunity. So we've kind of developed, it's kind of developed over time. So Oxford was we started with ZSL London Zero as the first Bond share, which still partners with but I think the Oxford thing was fantastic because it's given us the start to where we've got today in terms of developing those ideas.

I love the fact you're working for an organization that's prepared to try things. Have you brought that idea in lots of other situations? No how does that work for us? But they were prepared to give it a go.

And that's part of the brand, the largest brand, that we try things and we try different things. I think it makes our job more interesting, of course, and it's more engaging for people that we are doing different things as rather than just doing what everybody else does.

And do you think some of this is driven? We mentioned a number of times that your route into marketing wasn't a traditional one. You were a journalist to start with, so you've got a real nose for a story and you know what's going to resonate. And the things you're talking about now, whether it be creating a pathway to the lionesses, whether it be where you started in Oxford, especially with someone like Oxford. And there's a romance in that story that's just going to stick with people. Do you think your journalistic background may be what leads you in that direction?

I think journalism definitely contributes a lot. I think the communication so content has always been in the heart. People talk a lot about content, and content has always really been in the heart of what we tried to do. And what we're trying to do is find different channels to then if content is the engine, then everything else is almost distribution and different routes to market and different routes to clients. I think definitely journalism has helped massively. With that and thinking about the marketplace, I think a desire to be different. I think because I joined I mean, going back to that, you asked about large us and how we've developed. I think because we had to. Come out of that experience, and we had to grow. And almost in effect, from a point of view where proactive marketing in what we're talking about today wasn't really in place, they did marketing, and they did very successfully.

Communications in terms of the processes at that time, but we've developed everything else around from that. I think we had to be noticed, and we couldn't be noticed if we just tried to copy. And I think it's in. John's personality. It's in mine, it's in other people at largest. So it's really part of that DNA of the business that we like to try different things to stand out and I think we had to and therefore we've taken it on from there. I think the other thing of my background that people have pointed out to me so it's not me necessarily just thinking about this, but I actually did. My master's was in War Studies International. Relations. And I think a big part of that is strategy. And I think by doing that degree, I think I learned it's a fantastic degree to do. And I.

Think I really learned a lot about strategy and I think some of these things I don't really think about until somebody points them out. But for me strategy, I think that has fed into it as well, working out okay, what the vision is and how we're going to achieve that. And I think that Masters gave me a lot for that.

Wow.

So you have a long term vision for what you're trying to achieve but within that there's flexibility and adaptability to try things but with an eye on a longer term where you're going to get to in five years time.

Absolutely. And when John Irons became my boss, one of the first things he said to me was I want you to try things and if it doesn't work then you change it. Understand that it's not working, why it doesn't work and change it. But don't inaction. Inaction can sometimes be the right answer, but understand why in action, but actually try things, but then learn, don't just do it and leave it. Understand what's happening.

John obviously has a good understanding of the marketing process and the importance of it and how it works. How important is his personal brand to the Lion Trust brand? Does he like to build his own personality and his own profile or does it's all about Lion Trust? Where does that balance?

Actually he's not about his personal brand, he's about the Liontrust brand. And I think the same for the investment capability. This is line trust. We give a home to people, we get quality people and you allow them. He's very much about allowing you. He gives us ownership for what we do and if we deliver then John is fantastically supportive and John does believe in it and he's very much yeah, he's not about personal profile. Pushing his personal profile above the firms.

Refreshing.

Yeah, sure. He's great to work with.

Wow. I absolutely love what we've just been talking about. The way you think about telling Lion Trust story and building the brand I think is extraordinary and I'm looking forward to doing the wash up notes to the show when we get to record that before we go on. Time's marching on though and before we nip into our final section. We're in a really turbulent world at the moment. There's war, interest rates, inflation, cost of living crises, that kind of stuff. Have you seen and it may be the answer is just a straight no, of course, but have you seen the approach to how you tell the lion story change because of external factors? Or is what you're doing consistent? And actually so community focused that, I don't know how are you reacting to what's been going on over the last.

Twelve months in terms of things like the economic and political environment that's reflected in our investment insights? Really what the teams talk about, what the sales team so in the sense of the investment communications that we put out yes, definitely. In terms of obviously we're cognizant of the environment that we're in and I think we focused even more on education because it's the right thing to do. We're trying to help investors, and I think things like the cost of living cris and the environment probably make that even more important. Leveling up, for example. Is one thing that we also been working with an organization on. The Blackpool thing is not directly related to that, but it's part of that process. And we're doing a project on financial education ensuring that Numeracy is part of that kind of leveling up. So I think we're definitely aware of it.

It's particularly through the investment side that we reflect that. And obviously our job is to keep investors clients informed and try and help them in. Terms of understanding what's going on. So in that sense, it comes primarily from the investment side, but that feeds through sales and marketing and everything else communications. So, yes, it does feed through the.

Cost of investing, I suppose. Is a move towards more passive investing. So pricing and demonstrating value that can be added by active fund management. I imagine a big challenge. And that must play into what you're doing as well.

Yeah, I was going to say value for money? Yes, definitely. Of course, cost is an issue, industry is talked about huge amount. But what we're trying to demonstrate is that value the FCA, obviously, we've done value assessments now for three years or so. But it's really important that we can demonstrate the value of active and that's obviously key to a key part of what we offer active management, and we believe in it.

So there's an opportunity for you there again in how you market yourself and.

Our job is to do that well. They communicate that well. And also the value is around service and communication and it's not just around the investment management. Of course that service is really key. And service is what we could control. We can't always control investment performance all the time, but we could control process and we could control service. And those are things that we really try and focus on for clients.

Cool. Thinking ahead now for the next twelve months. Anyone that wants to can answer here what worries you economically, it seems to me I must say I think we're bottoming out this kind of the shallow downturn that we've seen. I'm seeing so many green shoots around at the moment. I'm very hopeful for the second half of this year. Obviously, your economists will be publishing their own thoughts, but what are you guys thinking about the rest of 23? Are you more bearish than me?

There was an interesting exchange in Prime Minister's questions, which I did watch this week, where Kirstarmer pointed out that 800,000 people have come off mortgage deals since the budget last September. So that's a lot of people who have been impacted hugely by mortgage costs. And there's another 900,000 to come off between now and the end of the year. So that's a lot of people just in relation to mortgages who are being hit hard, as there's lots of other things that are hitting them hard. So it worries me a bit that there is still there's a lot more to play out in relation to this cost of living cris. And of course that would play into all of us here, but it will play into what you're doing, Simon, and your business and your end investors, it's.

Not helpful knowing there are 799,999 other people who've just been shafted.

I'm not going to make any predictions, okay? We've seen predictions and they don't come true. And I think our job, without being corporate, our job is to really help people. And I think that's core to navigate this, because things change, as we've seen. Predictions are made, they're not fulfilled things, different things happen, as we've seen. We don't know really what's going to happen to the economy. We can have educated guesses. But I think our job is to really help people. And that's the core of what we do, is to help people navigate that. Whatever's going to happen, we can then try and assist that process, and that's really key and adapt to it, to those circumstances. And I think we have to be nimble enough and flexible enough to achieve.

That flexibility in a framework broadly.

Yeah. And I think that the better you are structured and organized, the more flexible you can be.

Wow, I'm lost for words. What a show that was. I'm sure you agree with me that was a masterclass in overcoming Mission Impossible. Tom Cruise himself would be proud of us, I'm sure. Thank you so much to both Simon and Jeff for joining me in the studio. Now, there's so much to unpack today that I think I'm probably going to have to leave most of it in the show notes, which you can find at Unicorny Co. UK. But it would be careless of me to cut today's show short without giving you at least some of the key points. Okay, so my first key takeaway today is that in complex markets, specifically in regulated markets like asset management, having a strong, distinct brand identity is crucial for success because although they're probably not to many of your audiences, your product might appear to be homogeneous. Now, by building brand recognition and focusing on differentiation, you're not only helping to attract new clients, but you're also helping to foster much longer lasting relationships.

Now, to achieve this, Simon advises you to focus on developing a cohesive and consistent brand image that communicates your company's unique value proposition. Now, at Lion Trust, marketing, as we heard, played a vital role in driving both the company's vision and its strategy. And in so doing, they crafted a unique and distinctive brand. And I think that their experience demonstrates that investing in branding can pave the way to success, but not only in their sector, but also in any regulated, heavily legislated or intermediated markets. The key to overcoming complexity? Good branding. Next up, while we spoke a lot about brand, simon made it clear that it's not just about brand, it's also, of course, about strategy. Now, strategy plays a pivotal role in shaping the company's brand identity, guiding marketing efforts and of know both articulating and then reaching the desired business objectives. And that's all part of a brand, obviously.

So a carefully crafted, long term strategic plan should include brands and enable your organization to build a clear vision, but also provide a roadmap and tools both to help articulate and define the brand, but also to accomplish brand building goals. In his case, Simon Hildey's background international relations taught him the importance of combining strategic thinking and adaptability. While you're writing that framework and on today's show, he discussed how Lion Trust follows a long term vision while maintaining flexibility in their approach, which is essential if market dynamics change. So leveraging strategy and adaptability allows you to create a strong, distinguishable brand, even amidst the complexities of a regulated or very heavily legislated market. I'm also enormously grateful to Simon for busting some myths today, because marketing in a heavily regulated industry can often be perceived as almost like too challenging, too restrictive, because of the need to follow strict governance guidelines and of course, adhere to the complicated requirements of compliance.

But murdering that myth, Simon illustrated that it's perfectly possible to create effective marketing strategies that align with regulations while still promoting actual products and services. Approaching compliance from a positive standpoint helps ensure that marketing messages are honest, clear and easily understandable, and that benefits your publics. Simon shone a light on the role of digital and social media channels, in particular in regulated markets. These channels offer an opportunity for much more personalised marketing, which actually can help you meet some of your regulatory compliance. Moreover, he emphasized that marketing to various audience segments is advantageous because it provides options for information type format and the kind of technical depth that investors receive. Now, I can't sign off today without also mentioning how inspiring Simon's story about Oxford United and now Lion Trust's Grassroots football sponsorship is. Those sponsorships are the embodiment of the Lion Trust brand to me.

So remember, however hard or complex the environment you trade in, your brand isn't what you say, it's what you do. Thank you for listening today's show. You can subscribe to the podcast on your favourite channel and we're listed on Spreaker.com, iHeartRadio, Podbean, Podchaser, Spotify, Apple, Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon, Google and all other good platforms. Now, we'd love it if you'd rate, review or refer us, because ratings and reviews and things like referrals, well, those are how shows like this one grow. So please, if you have the time, take a little time right now to support the unicorny Project. Now, if you're interested in joining our community, you can register at Unicorny Co UK and you can also find us on LinkedIn. You can go to our website, unicorny. Co UK. You can ask questions there. You can leave comments there. You can even leave us a voicemail.

And if you want to add today's debate, do it there. We may even put you on air. That is all for now. Thank you very much and catch you next time.