Campaign has launched “Market Leaders,” a new series of in-depth Q&As with the visionary leaders defining Canada’s marketing landscape. This series is designed to feature in-depth discussions that venture far beyond the immediate headlines.
We kicked things off yesterday with part one of a two-part interview with John Rocco, Scotiabank’s VP and chief brand officer. In the first instalment, we dissected the bank's recent high-profile campaigns and the strategic evolution of the iconic "You’re Richer Than You Think" tagline.
Today, we zoom out a bit. While yesterday was about the "what," today is about the "how."
We began this part of the chat by reviewing the momentum Scotiabank is currently enjoying on the world stage. The brand has successfully unified its international presence, modernized its visual identity across the Caribbean and South and Central America, including adapting "You’re Richer Than You Think" in Mexico, with Peru up next. It marks a fundamental shift for the organization: moving from a global company housing a collection of local brands to a truly global brand.
But even with those wins, the landscape is shifting. We asked Rocco about the job’s operational realities, and the things that keep a global brand leader up at night:
- Navigating a splintered media landscape.
- Why a little friction with agency partners is actually a good thing.
- How to justify marketing spend to a room full of bankers.
- The AI hype and real-world utility.
Q: As a marketer, what are you worried about? It could be about your brand or it could be a macro issue, but what are you most concerned about right now?
A: I think we all have macro concerns about the world, but as a marketer in financial services in Canada, I always worry about the homogeneity of it, and differentiation. Because we sell the same products, and it's really difficult to stand out. We always have to be thinking about differentiation, and how we resonate and have that emotional congruity with our consumers.
So I worry about losing that differentiation, which is why I try to keep us very close to what the customer is feeling, and acting on that [rather than] acting on short-termism or in a sort of knee-jerk [way] to anything that may be happening in the market. It’s really about understanding our consumer, and staying true to our brand values. But it's difficult. [Competitors] can copy, they can imitate. So it's hard to stand out when you're selling products that are very similar. So we have to really think about the hearts and minds of consumers to differentiate.
Q: We’ve already touched on social media, but another way of talking about that is just media fragmentation—your consumers are all over and everywhere. Is that a challenge or an opportunity?
A: I think it's an opportunity, obviously, because targeting is more sophisticated; we can talk to the right people more often. You see it in streaming, you see those abilities with connected TV, digital. The opportunity is really from a data understanding—you know where consumers are, and hitting them with the right message at the right time. But also creatively, having that consistency. I want people to feel the same way about a static, digital or an out-of-home billboard that they do about a 60-second spot.
To me, a 60-second anthem doesn't have the [optimal] value unless that billboard or that static or that social post can evoke the same connection with the consumer. And so I think that is the challenge in media fragmentation… We can figure out the science of it, we can figure out the targeting and all of those pieces. Everybody will have the ability to have the technology to do that, but it is what you do with those pieces.
Each tactic, each medium, can tell part of the same story, but it can't do it in the same way. So as marketers, we try to say too many things at once, we try to say the same thing in everything. If we can really understand what our consumers are feeling in that moment of where they are, have a message that's appropriate to that medium and resist the temptation to try and jam one more thing in, then we're doing a good job. It takes discipline, it takes resolve, and it takes really fighting to protect what each of those media is good at.
Q: How do you make the business case to your C-suite regarding brand marketing versus performance marketing?
A: What we have done over the last number of years is really connect them, so it's not about what brand marketing does versus performance marketing. It's about really taking it down to that linear regression model of when all of these variables are there, this is what happens. Take a variable out, take performance marketing out, what happens to brand marketing? It becomes inefficient. Take brand marketing out, what happens? Performance marketing becomes inefficient. We've had the benefit of executives who have listened and understand that these things work together.
I think [it helps] if you can tell that as a full story, and technology is making that easier. Like 20 years ago, when I was doing this, it was a lot harder. It was impossible. It was, ‘trust me.’
Thankfully, in the last campaign, “There’s more to life than more,” we had trust from our executive team and [we were] like, "Let us show you. Let us show you that this works." And so we were able to demonstrate over a period of two years, and it took time. Because MMM [marketing mix modeling] was still nascent. You couldn't do it on all your products. And now, as we're maturing in our ability to build these models and show the impact of when it's there and when it's not there, it becomes pretty empirical to see what happens. It's a lot easier to make [the case] now when we have that data behind it, but I'm not going to lie, it takes some trust initially to be able to go out and say, ‘I can't tell you empirically today, but over time I will.’
Q: Okay we talked about your bosses, now let’s talk about your agency. What is the most common source of friction between your team and your agency partners?
A: Where we have the most spirited discussions is in execution. And you know, we have a little bit of a promise to each other that they will push us, and then we will say when you've pushed too far. We both care deeply about craft and storytelling, and not for an indulgent reason, but because we believe it is going to drive brand affinity, which will ultimately drive results.
So I think it's that push and pull of, like, let's really push this to the limit, and then in execution, where do we go? And it even comes down to things like music. I'm a big believer in big music... I will push the agency to think about music from the beginning, not as what we do at the end. So we're always pushing each other on how we elevate the craft further, and how it fits throughout the funnel. But I wouldn't call it friction, I’d call it really healthy tension… When there's no tension, I worry.
Q: Is there a pet peeve you have regarding how agencies pitch creative to you?
A: I want you to give me goosebumps with a static. I think too much [creative] often comes with one concept. And, you know, "Here it is as a TV commercial. We'll figure out the rest along the way." We look for totality— how that is going to look as a social post, or any of those other things, and I don't think that is done enough.
Q: What's the Scotiabank attitude towards awards?
A: I have a certain affinity for some awards over others. They are important when you look at things like the Effies, the Clios, certain categories in Lions. When you are winning those types of awards, it’s because you're being effective in what you're doing. We won an Effie around our new to Canada campaign, and that was really important to me because we demonstrated that with this campaign, this strategy and insight, we were able to drive consistent growth over time. It was a consistent campaign and platform that told different chapters of the same story, and over time, it became more and more effective. That award is far more important to me than a stunt that may have been a one-day thing that got a bunch of use. I'm not interested in that.
Q: I want to go to artificial intelligence next, and how Scotiabank is using AI right now. Have you been asked to look for efficiencies or reduce costs from your budget by the use of AI?
A: I think it's about speed and scale really, and we're taking a really judicious approach to understanding how we can use it around speed and scale: versioning, optimization, those components. We have a very rigorous data ethics framework, and I would say we're not running quickly to simply use it as a cost cutting mechanism. I think [the goal] is, can we use it to make us better, to make us faster, to help do things at scale. Over time, that will present optimizations and efficiencies, but maybe allow us more time to do other things better and have more time to focus on some of the things that it can't do.
Q: I just want to push you on that, though: have you expressly been asked by your CFO or CEO to look for cost cuts?
A: No. We've been asked to look at AI and what ability it has in our organization. And I think it is going to lead to efficiencies. And to me, efficiencies can mean two things. It could mean cost cuts. It could mean having more time to focus on other things within the same cost envelope. But for us, it's about getting the right product and service to the consumer faster and at scale.
Q: One of the ways we’ve framed this is to consider if, say, a marketer budget is about 10% of revenue, can you imagine a scenario where that marketer will be spending 5% of revenue because they can do more with less, or do you think they will keep the budget at 10% and find new ways to spend that 10%?
A: There will probably be a story where you can go from 10% to 5%. Should you go from 10 to five? I think that is what we need to figure out. When you look at an Apple [or] Nike, do they need to spend 10% on brand today? Probably not. Their brand is so strong they could probably spend five. Will they, or will they continue to keep the brand healthy?
There are going to be brands that will go from 10 to five, and they may be fine in the short term. In the long term, it may hurt them. There'll be brands that don't, and which one is going to be right, or is it going to be somewhere in between? That's what we need to evaluate over time.
Q: You believe that parts of the marketing function will always have to be 100% human?
I personally do. I hope so. I hope AI can never tell a story like a room of creatives can sit down and tell a story. Can they distill insights faster and deeper? Maybe, but I hope the heart of marketing stays human.
Q: So are you generally optimistic about AI? Do you get anxious about it?
A: I'm really optimistic about it. You know, I'm doing a PhD in marketing, and it’s a lot of work and research. And I was very sort of anti-AI in that work, but it's an incredible tool for research. I saved hours in having a curated list of journals for me. But it can't read them for me. It can't help me articulate what I am understanding. So I am more open than I've ever been to the tool as a way to get to the point that the human part of it can be more effective and put more effort into that.
Q: There’s a lot of uncertainty in journalism as well, but what I've realized is that there is no curiosity in an AI. That's a human thing, I'm comfortable saying I'm using it more and more, because it helps me distill my thinking. But it's because I'm asking it good questions.
A: Whenever I mentor someone... and they ask me the question, what does it take to be a great marketer? One word answer is curiosity. And that you can't put that in the machine… yet.
