MARKETING 'THE NEW FINANCE': Finance & Investment Thought Leadership for the 21st Century

What do I mean by 'The New Finance' and why does it need Marketing?

If you’re wondering why I’m using the term ‘The New Finance’ and why you’ve never heard of it before then, no – to set your mind at rest - it’s not ‘technically’ ‘a thing’. That is to say that, if you mean by ‘thing’ a currently known ‘buzz phrase’, you have nothing to worry about.

However, it’s certainly ‘a thing’ if we are talking Real World marketing (and actual) situations.

In fact, if you google ‘The New Finance’ you will likely find only a couple of decade-old academic books about behavioural finance / economics (not that this is without interest).

But I mean something very different.

And it may appear at first as two or even three or more different issues, namely a) the issue of finance and investment language often being off-putting to many novice female investors; b) the issues of Sustainable Finance / SRI (socially responsible investment), ESG and the green economy; c) further, the general issue of diversity in finance and investment.

Why do I lump these together? How are (e.g.) Gendered Investment & ESG Related?

Because both come down to the fundamental fact that both finance / investment itself, and the language in which it is discussed in relation to individual and novice investors (i.e. demographics outside of the industry per se) may not be fully fit for purpose in 2023.

As a ghostwriter / writer and editorial / marketing expert, I am of course largely concerned with how these things are written about. At the same time, if you want to do authentic Marketing / Thought Leadership, I have to assume you are writing about things you are actually doing. The facts themselves, and the marketing of those facts, are intimately connected. Indeed, if they weren’t, it would be ‘greenwash’ (or ‘genderwash’ or ‘diversitywash’) and as such would not inherently fit the bill, since by definition greenwash (et al) is not truly authentic or sustainable.

In addition, ESG includes Social and Governmental aspects and these in turn mean that the finance & investment sectors must address ‘new’ demographics – both as customers / clients and as employees. For me, this largely concerns gender – there are of course many other diversity issues but I am only comfortable addressing what I personally understand and as a white, relatively able-bodied female, gender (and perhaps gendered age) remain(s) the only area(s) I can currently and reliably address.

The Fundamental Issue

The fundamental issue is that in 2023 it is, I’m afraid, not business as usual anymore in the finance, investment, and real estate finance& investment worlds.

Or rather, you may (as a company or a company CEO) attempt to continue as if it were, but it is going to cost you, if not now then in the fairly near future. Companies (and individual CEOs) who continue to ignore changes in society are like those mice in the classic business book who asked (too late) ‘who moved my cheese?’. But that is an old cliché. Personally, it reminds me more of the character Gerald in the film movie ‘The Full Monty’ (not that he’s unpleasant!) - desperately clinging to his old life and identity (and garden gnome collection) whilst his ‘world’ has been ripped from beneath him. In short, there is only so long that you can pretend that nothing is changing. Even Gerald provided the Full Monty in the end….

In actuality, many things are changing. For one, women’s growing overall wealth is giving them (us) new financial power. And as many commentators have noted, a large proportion of women, it has been found, would change financial advisors in the event of their (male) partner dying (or, I guess, moving on). Even if this never happened for any individual woman, it strongly suggests that women have very different ideas about what they want from financial advice, and as I have mentioned in a previous post (no need to recap here), language is a key part of this (alongside product offerings not understanding the female financial journey, and a general sense of feeling patronised).

ESG is not a separate issue to Gendered Investment

Ok, on paper and technically, it is a separate issue, in that you can do the bare minimum ESG requirements to look tolerable on paper and forget the gender issue full stop. But for a start, faux-ESG is already being seen through by wealthy Millennials. It is no longer enough to slap in socially aware add-ons to get by. In fact, it’s not even enough to publish full ESG reports (which favour companies with large marketing budgets) or even to hire an external specialist in ESG ratings / Sustainable Investments ratings based on filtering out glaringly unethical industries (though it helps).

In fact experts in the field of truly Sustainable Banking and Sustainable Finance & Investment are now suggesting that only a root and branch approach will really cut it, and as the average age of Fund Managers gets younger, more will try to find the time to do in-depth research into what companies are really doing (not just what they are saying). Indeed as shareholders get younger you will ultimately find the same problem. The new generation can smell the Greenwash a mile off. (This is not just my opinion - at least one anonymous Fund Manager, interviewed by PwC, said s/he felt increasingly that 'the b**lshit' is being seen through'.)

And if Millennials will continue to put on pressure, so will the female pound (or dollar, or yen) - and at any age - since women are more likely on average to pay particular attention to the content of their investments. Indeed the wealthier the woman is, the more careful she is likely to be – because she feels more free to exert her influence.

Can I just Level Up by Minding my Language?

Well I mean … you could. For a bit longer. I s’pose. As a sticking plaster. And as a writer, marketer and editorial consultant, you would think I would say yes – but alas, NO. At least, not really. Or not for too long.

Never before – due to the prevalence of the concept of greenwash – have people been so wary of ‘sustainable language’. What are you actually doing (or choosing not to do)? Are you in denial about the concept of ‘externalities’? That is, the concept whereby a company is in effect giving false figures because they are loading costs onto the general public? Believe me, as a younger writer I was (hands up, and to paraphrase Shakespeare) involved in drafting much Social Value drivel about nothing. Not anymore.

For example, if your product or service appears to be doing well (and, technically, is) nonetheless if you are offloading costs onto underprivileged people, you are not really doing well at all. An example? I’ll give you two, and in each case I will avoid the obvious example of doing environmental damage because most (not all) companies are already mindful of this, if only for cynical PR reasons:

Example One

A company is doing well on paper but largely because they are underpaying their employees or keeping them on part-time or gig-economy ‘salaries’ against their will. Many of their employees are also claiming benefits from welfare systems and as such, the company is in effect being subsidised by Government. In addition these workers are so hard-up that they are eating poorly – which then piles costs onto the NHS (or similar). A canny new generation (though not only Millennials) are cottoning onto this hidden subsidy. This company is profitable but is it sustainable, and would it be profitable if it took back its externalities?

Example Two

A Real Estate company is also doing well ‘on paper’. But it is only truly making profit by repeatedly claiming via RLVB’s (Residual Land Value Bids) that it cannot afford to provide the mandated mix of Affordable Housing. Councils are so broke that they accept this every time. Marketing materials proudly proclaim that it is enhancing the environment or adding Uplift. In reality it is forcing people out of the area, thus disrupting communities. And this disruption has multiple and expensive knock-on effects, which are offloaded elsewhere onto other services (where they still exist).

How Long Can I Fake It?

You can fake it as long as you get away with it! But I wouldn’t recommend it.

Already, cache is being accorded to companies (like Unilever) whose Growth Plans are genuinely sustainable (rather than faux-sustainable).

Already, people who are on-the-button are considering companies’ future values and valuations in relation to the concept of business risk. Are you, in fact, a potential future liability? Simply because you don’t seem able to move on, into 'The New Finance' (as I define it; or Green Economy, as but one aspect, if you prefer)?

What Can I do, then?! Act like you mean it! And write like you do it!

Frankly, the easiest way to write good marketing / PR for any aspect of the 'The New Finance' is to actually be doing it. If you are already in a business that wants to do social good (or at least not do harm), or wants to be more genuinely engaging to (e.g.) women, then it shouldn’t be so hard to market that (which is not to say that editorial / content advice is unnecessary – but then it becomes a communications / articulation issue). The point is that it’s genuinely difficult to market a product / service / notion that isn’t authentic (although plenty of people will, I’m sure, tell you how), particularly when authenticity itself is a desired characteristic.

In short, if you really care about (any aspect of) what I am calling 'The New Finance', then you already have (within you, or within your company) the material to authentically express that (though you may still want help with the specific articulation). But if you’re truly struggling, it may be because the underlying service or product offer is not really in line with what you are wishing you could ‘sell’. In that circumstance, what can I say?

Move on! Get with the programme! Don’t be that mouse. Don’t be that gnome. Don’t be that Gerald.