The corporate financial advice market is dominated by the ‘big four’ global players (PriceWaterhouse Coopers, Deloitte, KPMG and Ernst & Young) to the extent that smaller competitors such as Grant Thornton have found it difficult to generate awareness and, consequently, traction.
Grant Thornton wanted to increase brand awareness amongst larger companies, particularly in the City of London. It also wanted to challenge and engage with the market’s perception of Grant Thornton and its capabilities, and to demonstrate that it is a genuine alternative to the big four.
To achieve this, it commissioned its first-ever advertising campaign from Leicester-based agency Big Communications, as part of a strategy to establish itself as a ‘challenger’ brand, providing an alternative to the ‘establishment’ of the big four. A key objective was considered to be challenging the assumption in London that the big four are the only providers of specialist financial services before the selling of services could begin. As a result, activity would require an emotional response to communications.
Defying convention
Big Communications responded to the brief with a very simple strapline: ‘Think beyond convention… Think beyond the big four’. The first two ads in the campaign were designed to contrast the bland, scale-orientated values that Grant Thornton claims are common amongst the big four, with values that are more important to itself and its clients. This was achieved through the juxtaposition of four identical headlines (e.g. ‘big’) against a single smaller one (‘clever’).
The objective was to reach influencers within large city institutions, large corporates and major intermediaries, who can directly, or indirectly, affect how work is allocated. These individuals may not be working for the organisation directly, but may be ‘intermediaries’, such as lawyers or bankers providing a service.
Activity began in 2006, with a schedule for two four-week bursts over each of the following three years. Media-buying agency Pure Media was drafted in to develop a strategy to reach a broad range of the target audience. The following mix was selected.
Posters: 48 sheets at 80 sites within commuter stations in affluent areas around London, plus 60 escalator panels at Bank Underground station.
Press: Financial Times, The Times and The Lawyer.
Outdoor digital: animated ads on Transvision screens, and overland stations.
Web banners: ft.com
DM: 22,000 shot campaign to support above-the-line.
A massive internal communications campaign was also conducted, featuring posters, screensavers and competitions.
A total of £1.2 million has been allocated to the campaign for the duration of its three-year lifespan, with media-spend fixed and a small sum set aside for ongoing tactical activity, to be used on a discretionary basis throughout the campaign.
A PR campaign was also undertaken, in parallel with the first burst of activity.
Results
Pre and post-campaign research was conducted to track the effectiveness of the campaign. In the intermediary market (i.e. lawyers, bankers and venture capitalists) awareness of Grant Thornton jumped from 44 to 67 per cent, following the first four-week activity burst. Awareness in the mid-market sector rose from 20 per cent to 37 per cent during the same period.
The campaign also won ‘best brand awareness campaign’ at the B2B Marketing Awards 2006.
Chris White, director of communications for Grant Thornton UK, comments, “We are delighted to have won this professional award. It is great recognition for a campaign that has blown the cobwebs off conventional advertising in the accountancy sector.”
He continues, “Despite being in the first phase of a three-year campaign, we have already seen a dramatic increase in brand awareness. As well as extremely positive feedback from clients, staff, contacts and targets, the results from three independent market research studies have shown awareness levels, which in some cases has doubled among our target audience.”
