Twenty-six years between the advert and the account

Mandate

Make the bank's communication match its cooperative character while remaining relevant to savers and borrowers under forty.

Outcomes

• Rewrote savings-rate advertising to show the twelve-month condition first
• Announced fourteen branch closures with twelve weeks' notice and branch-specific letters
• Withdrew an unsupported carbon claim and tied a renovation discount to verified certificates
• Introduced an annual customer-understanding report to the board risk committee

Decisions in context

I joined a bank whose members trusted it and whose advertising had begun to borrow its competitors' habits. Rate headlines had grown larger, closure letters vaguer and environmental language looser. The chief executive asked me to bring our communication back into line with the institution without losing people under forty, who supplied a shrinking share of new savings. I reorganised the team around customer journeys, brought a complaints analyst into marketing and set up a claims register shared with legal and sustainability colleagues. All three cases on this site come from this appointment. Each year I report to the board risk committee on customer understanding and complaints, and I present brand strategy to the full board when invited. I am not a director, and I do not sit on the management committee, which decides rates and the shape of the branch network.

Reason for the move

Current appointment; preparing for a first non-executive role in a consumer-facing company.

Mandate

Grow customers and deposits for a bank without branches at an acquisition cost the parent group would accept.

Outcomes

• Customers rose from about 140,000 to 410,000
• Moved a quarter of the rate-promotion budget into onboarding and service communication in 2019
• Raised the two-year active-customer share from 46% to 61%

Decisions in context

Quellmont Direct gave me direct accountability for growth. We had no branches, so every customer arrived through advertising, comparison sites or a recommendation, and the chief executive saw every euro of acquisition cost each month. For three years we competed mainly on rate, and balances grew quickly. The same approach produced customers who moved whenever another bank paid slightly more. In 2019 I proposed moving a quarter of the promotion budget into onboarding, clearer service messages and a monthly note explaining rate changes before they took effect. The chief executive agreed after a difficult discussion with the insurer's finance team about the slower deposit growth that would follow, and did follow, for two quarters. The appointment left me sceptical of acquisition figures that ignore the second year, a view I took with me to Hasselt.

Reason for the move

Wanted to work for a bank with branches and long customer relationships, where communication shapes trust over decades.

Mandate

Make retail product communication and customer correspondence consistent, accurate and readable.

Outcomes

• Rewrote 120 standard customer letters with legal and operations colleagues
• Reduced letters generating a follow-up call from 9% to 4%
• Introduced customer comprehension testing before major product launches

Decisions in context

This role taught me that a bank's most widely read communication is not its advertising. Customers received about fourteen million letters from us each year: rate changes, fee notices, account closures and payment reminders. Many had been drafted by different departments over two decades, and some contradicted each other. With legal and operations colleagues, my team rewrote 120 standard letters and tested each one with customers before it went live. The share of letters prompting a follow-up call fell from 9% to 4% over two years, which also eased pressure on the contact centre. I reported to the director of retail banking and argued for budget against product teams who preferred campaigns to correspondence. The programme survived two budget rounds because the call figures were persuasive. I left when an online-only bank offered me responsibility for growth rather than for clarity alone.

Reason for the move

Recruited to lead marketing at an online-only bank with full responsibility for growth.

Mandate

Support branch sales and local communication in the bank's French- and German-speaking regions.

Outcomes

• Produced a daily branch question sheet during the autumn 2008 crisis
• Ended forty small sponsorships with no traceable link to customers
• Standardised approval of local events and sponsorship across 140 branches

Decisions in context

I joined to support local marketing in branches across Wallonia and the German-speaking east, a region I knew well and where head office could feel distant. The routine work was local events, sponsorship requests and campaign materials adapted for smaller towns. The autumn of 2008 changed the role. Customers arrived at branches anxious about their savings, and staff needed accurate answers that were not yet in any brochure. With legal and treasury colleagues, my team issued a daily question sheet for several weeks, listing the questions we could not yet answer and when we expected to. Branch managers told me it mattered more than any campaign that year. I also learnt to refuse: I ended forty small sponsorships that branches valued but nobody could connect with customers. That was unpopular, and I explained each decision to the branch concerned in person.

Reason for the move

Promoted to lead retail communication for the whole bank.

Mandate

Produce accurate credit advertising and direct mail for car dealers and direct customers.

Outcomes

• Moved legal review to the concept stage rather than after production
• Rebuilt loan illustrations to show the monthly payment and total repayable together
• Built the company's first response tracking for direct mail

Decisions in context

Consumer credit is a demanding place to learn advertising, because every number carries a legal and financial consequence. I produced dealer materials, press advertisements and direct mail, first as the only marketing officer and later managing a team of three. Our legal team reviewed everything, and at first I treated that review as the final hurdle. After one campaign had to be pulled and reprinted because a monthly figure was more prominent than its conditions, I asked the reviewer to see concepts before production began. That small change saved money and improved the work. I also noticed how many calls came from customers who had understood the monthly payment but not the total amount repayable, so we rebuilt the loan illustrations to show both side by side. I left to join a bank where a customer relationship lasted longer than a single loan.

Reason for the move

Joined a universal bank to work across savings, payments and branch relationships.

Mandate

Coordinate briefs, production and client approvals for retail and financial clients.

Outcomes

• Managed campaign production for a regional lender, a furniture retailer and a book publisher
• Organised consumer research groups for two campaign launches
• Drafted the agency's first review checklist for financial advertising

Decisions in context

My first employer was a sixty-person agency in Brussels, and my first responsibility was making sure work arrived on time and within budget. I coordinated briefs, instructed studios and printers, and sat behind the glass at research groups watching people react to concepts. The financial client was the smallest account and the most instructive. When my account director returned a poster built around a single rate, asking what readers would believe from the number alone, the redesign became my first lesson in honest emphasis. I was then asked to turn that lesson into a short checklist for the agency's financial work, which the partners adopted for new briefs. After almost three years I wanted to see the decisions behind an advertisement rather than only its production, so I joined a consumer lender's marketing team in Liège.

Reason for the move

Moved client-side to learn how a lender made decisions about its advertising.