Read the room

Empathy may be the rarest quality in corporate comms. And the most powerful.

This is an extract from IMTW № 93.

Read on to learn why:

① Trying to invoke sympathy for a financial services firm is a fool’s errand.

② The best communications are empathetic, candid, informed, and interesting.

③ Smaller asset managers will likely benefit from an about turn on research fees.

④ The world’s central banks continue to investigate the benefits of blockchain.

⑤ Your marketing team should be experimenting with AI. Now.

⑥ The hardest messages to communicate demand candour.

⑦ Cross-selling is as effective across industries as it is across product lines.

What's new

Abrdn’s chief investment officer complained this week that the company is facing “corporate bullying” by the media. That went down as well as you’d expect.

In short:

• “In an interview with Financial News, Peter Branner said that the British press mocking the company’s disemvowelled name was taking it a step too far. ‘I?understand that corporate bullying to some extent is part of the game with the press, even though it’s a little childish to keep hammering the missing vowels in our name,’ he said. ‘Would you do that with an individual? How would you look at a person who makes fun of your name day in day out? It’s probably not ethical to do it. But apparently with companies it is different’.”
• “Developed by branding agency Wolff Olins, the new name is written in lower case and pronounced as ‘Aberdeen’.”
• “However, it faced a string of ridicule from the public and press alike, with AJ Bell’s Laith Khalaf saying at the time that it would be leaving investors ‘dazed and confused’. Others compared it to the disastrous rebranding of Royal Mail as Consignia, or to asking Countdown host Rachel Riley for consonants.”

Why it matters

I didn’t bother discussing the Abrdn rebrand with you when it happened. It felt too easy a target. Suffice to say, I’m with the army of branding experts who unanimously declared it a naive disaster. But this latest gaffe from the accident prone firm isn’t about branding at all. It matters because it’s an example of corporate communications that lack the slightest bit of empathy.

① Branner utterly misjudges his audience and so makes two key errors. The first is he erroneously believes he can inspire sympathy for a financial services firm. And he does so by complaining about the press…to the press. Rather than take any ownership, he seeks to blame others. A fool’s errand. No surprise then that it resulted in yet more mocking (and delightfully amusing) press coverage.

The second, arguably much worse, mistake is he bastardises well meaning diversity and inclusion language to try to apply it to his company. ‘Corporate bullying’ means a company bullying or allowing its staff to be bullied. It was never intended to apply to a multi-billion pound company having its poor branding decisions mocked by the free press. And to suggest otherwise is a slap in the face to anyone who has been the victim of actual corporate bullying.

What to do about it

Take action

It’s particularly unfortunate for Branner that he should trip up this week of all weeks, because his pratfall coincides with the publication of Jamie Dimon’s shareholder letter - a piece of corporate comms universally praised by experts. Our action this week then is to be less Branner and more Dimon, whose book-length annual report letters are the closest thing the industry has to a State of the Union.

② The annual letters from the chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan have earned Dimon praise, trust and admiration because they’re:

1. Empathetic: Dimon thoroughly understands the preoccupations of this audience and remains focused on addressing them.
2. Candid: There is a refreshing honesty and sense of ownership running through Dimon’s letters. He doesn’t sugar coat bad news nor try to deflect blame for mistakes he may have made.
3. Informed: Dimon is never lax with the facts. His letters give the impression of being considered and full of clear and definite viewpoints on a multitude of issues likely to affect the performance of his bank.
4. Interesting: By not shying away from being opinionated, Dimon ensures his letters are a good deal more interesting and readable than the vast majority of corporate communications in financial services.

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For the rest of this issue, including points ③, ④, ⑤, ⑥ and ⑦, visit my Substack >

About

Written for senior leadership teams in finance and technology,?InMarketing This Week?is a showcase for news likely to impact you - delivered with insight on why it matters and ideas on what to do about it. It’s published every Sunday to give you a head start on the week. Read extracts?here, or subscribe to?have each full issue delivered straight to your inbox at six, before it's available anywhere else.