Sibos 2023: “Act like media companies” marketers told

Financial businesses need to think and act more like media companies in their marketing approach if they are to succeed in today’s crowded marketplace.

That was the advice to delegates attending “the future of marketing” seminar at this year’s Sibos conference in Toronto, from Rival CEO Eric Fulwiler.

Fulwiler, who is the former CMCO at 11:FS and the former group director of Vayner Media, advised financial marketers to adopt tactics and the departmental structure of a media company in order to standout in today’s increasingly competitive environment.

“I have spent time in the media world and in the marketing world. The biggest difference for me is that marketing assumes you have the attention of your audience whereas if you are a media company, your business model is attention,” he said.

“The thing you care about the most is ‘how do I produce content? How can I put on events? How can I do activations that are going to earn people’s attention? So, I believe modern marketing, particularly B2B marketing, is about thinking and acting more like a media company than a marketer.”

Addressing delegates, Fulwiler said walking around the conference, he was struck by the number of companies with marketing that wasn’t easily definable.

He said: “It is getting harder to differentiate your brand. There are so many new products, solutions, and new brands that are coming on the market. How do you stand out in a way that people are going to care about you?

“When I walk around Sibos, I feel like a lot of what I see could be so many different businesses. One of the questions or prompts I used to use at 11:FS was ‘If you took our logo off of an ad, a piece of content, or a booth, could it be Accenture, Deloitte or McKinsey?’”

He encouraged marketers to embrace this exercise and consider whether their marketing assets were sufficiently distinctive to achieve their aims.