Never mind the startups, we’re a fintech grown-up

With so many new companies cluttering the fintech market these days, being a brand with experience and legacy is a key differentiator — and it's the foundation of Broadridge’s marketing strategy, according to its global CMO Deborah Bussiere.

Speaking to Campaign Asia-Pacific in Singapore, Bussiere said that while fintech is a hugely dynamic space, in which several startups are doing fascinating things, ‘new and exciting’ is not exclusively theirs to own.

“There are lots of fintech startups,” she explained, “but I think of us as the original fintech grown-up. We’ve been doing financial technology for years; our roots go back 30-40 years before we were called Broadridge.”

With market capitalisation of close to US$10 billion and 10 years in the game, Broadridge is most certainly an established financial services institution, although Bussiere readily admits it is not on the scale of the JP Morgans and Morgan Stanleys of this world.

But as global CMO, Bussiere has spearheaded the firm’s brand positioning around having a foot in both camps: the rapidly changing and cutting-edge fintech world – blockchain, deep analytics, AI – and the more “grown up”, traditional financial services capabilities – capital markets, asset and wealth management and corporate support. 

The next step is building greater awareness of the company and Broadridge's new campaign and brand proposition, ‘Ready for Next’, is now being rolled out globally.

“We’re weaving it into all of the existing marketing programmes we have today, whether it’s sponsoring, presence at a festival, press releases, thought leadership pieces, and certainly on social media,” she listed. “Also, depending on budgets, we’re looking at some bigger media buys in local markets where it makes sense.”

To that end, Bussiere said, Broadridge is particularly keen on the “greenfield opportunities” Asia has to offer. The company has been in the region for more than 20 years but for Bussiere, the interest on the fintech side is especially exciting.

“What’s different in Asia is the readiness to embrace the new technology sooner,” she said. “There are fewer legacy systems, so there’s a real willingness to try something new. Our North American counterparts are I think a little slower to adopt that.”

For the marketing unit, Asia’s digital-first mindset means Bussiere’s teams and partner agencies can be efficient when it comes to getting out Broadridge’s message.

“We’re using social media in a very targeted way; geo-locating, in-depth analysis of the data we’re getting about our target audiences,” she explained. “We’ve had a lot of success with some social media programmes and doubled our engagement on average [globally].”

Bussiere has lofty ambition, saying she wants Broadridge to become “a household name”. With much buzz around the fintech industry just now, she said it is the perfect time to come to market with the right message at the right time.

“It’s less about breaking through the noise in fintech,” she said. “It’s articulating that we’re a fintech grown-up, we’ve been doing financial technology before it became a sexy term. That you can trust us, we know what we’re doing.”