Name: Jeff Lyall
Job Title & Company: Founder, Spearmint
Social: LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jefflyall
What attracted you to becoming a judge for the Financial Promoter Awards 2026?
Financial services is among the hardest sectors to market well. Regulated content, low consumer trust, and messaging that’s often been butchered before it arrives to market.
From the outside it’s still seen as a dry, boring industry to market for, but that’s changing fast as younger audiences and newer channels mature in the space. I want to reward the entries that are part of that shift.
Why are programmes like the FP awards important for the industry?
Unlike most other categories of marketing, financial services touches everyone – whether it’s a current account, car insurance, or a pension.
That universal relevance is exactly why the standard of marketing in this space matters, and scrutiny like this helps keep standards high.
What excites you most about judging this year’s awards?
Creativity in a tediously AI-saturated world. Seeing where smaller, leaner teams have punched above their weight with a genuinely creative idea rather than a generated one.
What separates a good entry from a great entry?
Narrative impact. Plenty of teams can do great bread-and-butter work – the ability to pull a real story out of that work is – at its core – what marketing actually is.
A good entry describes the activity; a great entry tells you the story of what it achieved.
What role does creativity play in financial services marketing?
More important than it’s arguably ever been. As more brands lean on generated creative, genuine creative cut-through becomes rarer and marketers should be leaning into that gap as hard as they can.
If you could give entrants once piece of advice what would it be?
Show, don’t tell. “The (tangible impact) our campaign had” will always beat “we did this (standard activity).
What does the future of financial services marketing look like to you?
More human, more micro-moments. Challenger brands are already pushing this in a positive direction, and incumbents need to react.
There’s a real parallel with hospitality here – treating the customer as a person to look after, not a number on a spreadsheet, which is how a lot of older institutions still consider customers.
Finally, what’s one word you hope describes this year’s winners?
Creative
Are you a judge or a sponsor and would like to get involved?
Please email Megan McCabe, Marketing Manager, at megan.mccabe@rhoticmedia.com.