When you’re newly appointed in a business, it’s important to make your mark early. Gareth Case, head of marketing at Xchanging, is certainly proving gutsy. Victoria Clarke reports
Trying to pin down senior marketers to interview is always a challenge. So imagine my surprise when Gareth Case, head of marketing at Xchanging and its commercial insurance software arm, Xuber, agreed to meet on launch day of Xuber’s global rebrand. And when I say rebrand, I don’t mean a logo tweak and refreshed website. We’re talking a complete overhaul of brand positioning, leveraging pretty much every single marketing channel imaginable; the whole shebang.
Xuber’s rebrand this October encompassed social media (across five social channels), outdoor advertising (the brand commandeered the whole of London’s Bank station’s advertising space), guerilla marketing (a touring bus and 32 world-class baristas brewing coffee for commuters – served by 50 Xuber butlers), a high-profile launch event at the top of Heron Tower and a five-day tour around Asia as part of an internal launch programme. A mix of other channels were carefully integrated too. It was achieved in a mere three months, and with only the help of a small inhouse marketing team (and support from their agency). What makes the whole thing more remarkable, is that Case only joined Xchanging at the start of the rebrand project earlier this year.
Rallying the board
So how did the board feel when Case presented his grand plan? He says buy-in from key stakeholders was essential. He explains he received support early on, bolstered by initial achievements that set a precedent and garnered trust for the remainder of the project. Yet it was not without challenges – as will no doubt resonate among his peers.
“People at board level don’t always appreciate the challenges associated with delivering tactical elements of a rebrand project. I needed to get them to understand and then buy in to the process we were to use throughout the project before we started,” Case says. The solution was simply to show them what was involved, how it would be delivered and by when.
Case reveals another challenge with key stakeholders involved in the project came during various approval stages, especially in relation to collateral content. I can see how this would frustrate anyone, let alone someone with the gusto Case so often exhibits. However, he says it wasn’t long before negotiations were made to remove some of the sign-off responsibility from the management team so he and his team could get on with the job.
Case definitely favours an autonomous working style. “I get very little pressure from above” he says, and despite the rebrand challenges, puts this down to the fact that “our finance guys and board really understand and support marketing. Believe it or not this is rare these days.” Case’s appreciation for autonomous working extends to the way he manages his team too, “If you’re doing a good job, why should you be micro-managed? People work better when given freedom and flexibility.”
Cultivating collateral
Much of Case’s motivation behind the rebrand seems to stem from a passion to push the boundaries of traditional marketing collateral. The notorious PDF factsheet is Case’s bugbear. He reels off a diverse way in which a piece of content can be recycled into multiple, engaging and targeted pieces of collateral to achieve maximum ROI. It’s a far cry from the way Xchanging’s software arm historically garnered new business, where marketing was virtually non-existent and collateral consisted of a couple of factsheets. Case reveals, “The business was living off the fat of existing customers. It’s incredible to have come this far without any injection in marketing and that’s a testament to the quality of our product suite, but I’m excited about the impact this project will have on our sales pipeline going forward.”
Show ‘em how it’s done
Of course none of the Xuber launch would’ve been quite so successful without Case building a strong team following his appointment. He says skills and expertise were crucial in putting the marketing team together, in particular with regards to social media – a previously untapped channel. While social media adoption in the insurance sector is not exactly thriving, it is on the rise so it was important to get Xuber’s senior stakeholders set up in the social sphere. As an example, Case explains Twitter accounts for two senior stakeholders (previously Twitter virgins) were initially set up and managed by his team to provide a ‘face’ for Xuber customers to interact with. However, by his team providing inhouse training and guidance, it wasn’t long before the stakeholders were taking responsibility for tweeting themselves. “They were asking how they retweet stuff and at one point, both stakeholders were in the boardroom having a competition for who had the most followers,” reveals Case. Of course, not only does this demonstrate social media success, but on a wider scale, stakeholder buy-in – exactly the kind of nirvana Case ruthlessly strives for.
Case concludes, “Getting our social strategy right is vital to the future success of this business. The ‘Facebook generation’ entering the workplaces of our customers and prospects expect to be able to communicate via these channels. An investment in social media to cater for this audience might be frowned upon by some but we must appreciate these rising stars will be key decision makers in the near future and we want them buying into our brand now.”
Case’s top tips for rebrand success
1. Stakeholder buy-in is crucial. You need your sponsors that are above in the business to believe in you. Get a job done successfully and show them they can trust you. Once you get a couple of stakeholders on board, they’ll tell others and news will spread quickly.
2. Engagement depends on audience. For example, Xuber’s audience is not particularly susceptible to social media, but industry journalists are. Engage with journalists, build relationships, and suddenly you’ll have a window into their audience, which are your prospective customers.
3. Get the right team in place. Play to the strengths of each team member. There’s only so much you can effectively outsource. It’s important you build a team with specialist skills to support the full marketing mix, not a team of ‘generalists’.
4. Don’t get hung up on metrics. You won’t be able to track all rebrand activity. But if you get out there and physically speak to prospects/customers, you’ll get a real sense of how successful things are going. Use these opportunities to create further collateral – of which you can measure.
