Do banks have that sympathetic touch?
Pepe Marais, chief creative officer of the Joe Public group, says: "There is a lot of talk of purpose from many brands, but very few are living [it] or even truly understand what it means. Purpose is the greater value you bring to the world, beyond just your product or your profit, and it should always start with one word. "To get there, you need a "conscious CEO" to be interested in answering these questions and implementing the result in the business. "Because businesses are so deeply conditioned to just be obsessed with shareholder returns," he says. Mfikwe says: "Heightened customer expectations, changing consumer habits and changes in media consumption have necessitated a mind shift in advertising, and by extension retail banking advertising. From our perspective, the focus is to provide contextual financial solutions which are anchored in customer needs, and we want to do this through the viewpoint of the customer, not just the product. "We see this as a necessary shift in financial services because customer needs always must be the core focus of solutions. The age of product-led constructs is certainly becoming outdated." Part of the new challenge is for brands to learn how to adapt to uncertainty, and Mfikwe agrees that thinking needs to change. "Uncertainty is one of the biggest risks in society, for businesses and individuals. The secret to success in a dynamic environment is to be agile and resilient, because you can only control how you react to change." In a series of powerful vignettes, #TheChangeables campaign celebrates South Africans who take challenges in their stride, transform obstacles into opportunities and embrace change as a way of building a better future for themselves and others. And for a change, when it comes to campaign success measurement, there is a new approach. Says Mfikwe: "Beyond our brand communication measurement metrics, we simply want society and customers to own the campaign, because that is the most effective way to create change agents. Success will be evaluated in several ways, but key to that will be our ability to create a platform for change agents to realise their dreams. That goes for the individual customer and businesses."