Barclays' bold branding

Compelling branding connects client friction points and specific solutions.

Read on to learn why:

① Emotion without factual substance behind it is a red-flag, not a differentiator.

② Bold branding demands honest, specific understanding of your clients.

③ Financial literacy is re-emerging as a powerful tool for marketers.

④ Agentic commerce is here. Brands should meet their clients where they are.

⑤ It’s time to consider Reddit for your social B2B marketing.

⑥ Diplomacy may be a CEO’s most valuable skill.

⑦ More CMOs should be CEOs.

📸 But first, flashback to International Women's Day 2024 when I told you that it was time to drop the platitudes and take meaningful action. Although a substantial gender gap remains at the top of the wage scale, there is some good news this week: the number of female high-earners has hit a record high.

What's new

Barclays unveiled a bold new brand direction with a major UK reappraisal campaign, Marketing Communications News reports.

Source: Marketing Communications News, 29 October 2025

In short:

“The wide-reaching, fully integrated campaign aims to drive reappraisal of Barclays as the bank best placed to help people, businesses and communities make meaningful progress. The campaign brings this notion to life by dramatising the defining moments when people choose to make a positive change in life or in business.”
“Reflecting charming and relatable scenarios rather than the clichés of banking advertising, the campaign demonstrates that Barclays has a crucial role in supporting people to take that next step, no matter what that may be.”
“Sitting at the heart of the campaign are two 60” hero films. ‘Orca’ shows a man at home with his mum, watching a nature documentary that sparks the decision to finally move out and get his own place sooner. This is made possible with the Mortgage Boost offering from Barclays. The second film, ‘Skatepark’, shows skateboarders watching two self-appointed ‘finance gurus’ spout misleading advice on social media. Instead of joining in, our main character, Isaac, turns to Barclays LifeSkills to help him gain money confidence. In both films, the campaign reflects modern British life with authenticity, humour and a distinctive brand voice.”

Why it matters

It’s such a rare pleasure to have something gushing to write about financial services marketing but this week I do. Bravo, Barclays, this is superb.

The Barclays marketing team have done something most financial institutions avoid: they’ve made their advertising about customer problems, not bank products. While competitors drone on about ‘competitive rates’ and ‘award-winning service,’ Barclays dramatised a man still living with his mother watching nature documentaries and skateboarders scrolling through dodgy TikTok financial advice. That’s uncomfortable and bold but that’s not why it’s effective.

① Emotion in isolation doesn’t work. As American Banker reports this week: when your ads lean heavily on emotion without substance, customers smell desperation. Banks that over-indexed on trust appeals during the 2008 crisis were often the ones scrambling to prevent bank runs. Wells Fargo’s post-scandal ‘re-commitment’ ads? Pure emotional theatre masking operational failures.

Barclays have threaded the needle beautifully. They’re anchoring emotional resonance in genuine customer pain points - housing affordability, business growth pressures, financial misinformation - then positioning specific products (Mortgage Boost, LifeSkills) as solutions. It’s not ‘trust us because we’ve been around 330 years.’ It’s ‘we understand you’re stuck, and here’s exactly how we unstick you’. That’s customer-centricity with teeth.

② The lesson? Bold branding demands honest, specific understanding of customer friction points coupled with demonstrable solutions. Barclays isn’t saying they’re ‘here for you’, they’re showing they understand that progress feels impossible when you’re 32, sharing a bedroom wall with your parents, and saving for a deposit. That specificity makes the brand brave. And customers will remember it.

What to do about it

Take action

Audit your campaign narratives: Pick a current outgoing marketing or brand campaign and ask, does the story centre on our client’s pivotal moment, or does it centre on us talking about ourselves? If the latter, re-frame the key message to highlight a client ‘progress moment’.
Commission your ‘messy moments’ research: Task your marketing team to identify the five most uncomfortable, specific moments in your client journey where progress feels impossible. Build campaigns around those moments.
Map advertising claims to operational KPIs: Create a spreadsheet. Left column: what your ads claim you’re great at. Right column: the metrics that prove it. Any claim without measurable backing is a reputational liability.
Enforce the ‘uncomfortable truth’ test on your next creative brief: Before approving any campaign, ask: does this address a specific client pain point that would make them slightly uncomfortable to admit? If it’s all warm and fuzzy, bin it.
Implement the ‘product proof’ rule: No campaign moves forward unless it links brand positioning to specific products or services with genuine differentiated value. Emotion amplifies truth; it can’t replace it.

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Top stories

The other articles that are worthy of your time.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

One fifth of wealthy Brits over 55 unaware pensions to become liable to IHT

③ Financial literacy is re-emerging as a powerful tool for marketers. Just ask Saxo.

Source: International Adviser, 27 October 2025

“19% of high net worth individuals over 55 said they didn’t know that unused private pensions will become liable for inheritance tax from April 2027.
“And of those who said they did know, a quarter (25%) said they were not actively taking any action to account for the change.”
“The major change was announced at last year’s Autumn Budget and has been a hot topic over the past year. Speculation is mounting that the government may make further changes to the IHT regime in the upcoming Budget in November, such as tinkering with gifting rules.”

TECHNOLOGY

PayPal wallet comes to ChatGPT

④ Agentic commerce is here. Brands should meet their customers where they are.

“PayPal says it is adopting the Agentic Commerce Protocol, an open standard that OpenAI codeveloped with another payments giant, Stripe.”
“This means that millions of ChatGPT users will be able to check out instantly using PayPal, and PayPal will support payments processing for merchants using OpenAI Instant Checkout. PayPal will also connect its global merchant network to OpenAI, creating a platform for tens of millions firms to sell within ChatGPT.”
“Through PayPal’s wallet, shoppers will be able to use multiple funding options such as bank, balance, and cards, as well as the firm’s buyer and seller protections, and post-purchase services such as tracking and dispute resolution.”

MEDIA & MARKETING

Reddit posts another big revenue result in Q3

⑤ It’s time to consider Reddit for your social B2B marketing.

Source: Social Media Today, 30 October 2025

“Reddit has announced its latest performance update, with the platform that’s become a key inlet for AI chatbots adding more users in Q3, while also boosting its overall revenue intake by a massive 68% year-over-year.”
“Reddit’s user-voted up and downvote system has ended up being a blessing for its value, helping people find relevant answers to various queries, with the most helpful responses being elevated by user votes. Reddit has also benefited from an increased presence in Google Search results, while as noted, the platform is now also among the most cited sources for AI chatbots, which look to Reddit for human-generated responses to replicate.”
“Given its presence in AI discovery, advertisers are now paying more attention to the platform, in the hopes of getting their products recommended within AI search results. That’s driving big benefit for the app, while Reddit’s also increasing its data deals to help facilitate other AI and discovery projects.”

WILDCARD

CEOs don’t call the shots

⑥ Diplomacy may be a CEO’s most valuable skill.

Source: The Financial Times, 27 October 2025

“For most of their careers, CEOs have answered to one person. At the top they must satisfy many: a chair and directors who work part-time, with competing interests and approaches. Add activist shareholders, regulators and the relentless media cycle, and the number of factions the boss must placate looks unmanageable.”
“The US remains an outlier in allowing one person to serve as both chair and CEO — as Citigroup confirmed last week by elevating Jane Fraser to the dual role. Elsewhere, governance codes and investor pressure have entrenched the split, creating a built-in tension between the boss and those who hold them to account. Much of a CEO’s week is spent persuading, appeasing and aligning competing forces — including directors they may neither like nor respect, and who often lack the expertise management teams wish they had.”
“Strategic plans often stall not because ideas are weak, but because the groundwork for trust and alignment was never laid. Many regret not investing early in relationships with individual board members. The ability to choreograph consensus is often the most important skill a CEO can have.”

Off cuts

The stories that almost made this week’s newsletter.

The last word

⑦ Jordan Greenaway on why more CMOs should be CEOs:

Jordan Greenaway. Source: Raconteur, 27 October 2025

“The central challenge of modern business is building a brand that sticks, stays fresh and evolves with consumer behaviour at a time when loyalty is eroding. That challenge naturally plays to the strengths of the CMO. They understand the brand’s heartbeat. They think in terms of consumer psychology. They know which levers to pull to deepen trust and keep customers coming back.”

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Wishing you an influential week,