Laura Curtis Ferrera, global CMO, Scotiabank

By Will Novosedlik

We’ve got a returning series, asking top marketers across the country about their biggest fears and concerns. What are the things of marketing nightmares? This week, we spoke with Laura Curtis Ferrera, global chief marketing officer at Scotiabank, about the biggest problem she faces.

Ferrera has held the role of global CMO since 2020, after five years as SVP of marketing, global wealth management, global business banking and Canadian retail marketing at the bank. Previous to that she moved through the marketing ranks in financial organizations like Richardson Wealth, Macquarie Group, Blackmont Capital and Rockwater Capital.

So what is keeping you awake at night these days?

I lose sleep thinking about how our clients are losing sleep. In fact we have what we call a proprietary “worry poll,” which tells us that people are now literally losing up to 16.2 hours of sleep a week worrying about their finances.

It’s important to remember that money can be much more emotional than rational, particularly in the moments that matter to our clients. Moments like starting a family or thinking about where to live or about starting a business. And during those moments I think it’s really important to remember that our role as a bank in their lives is to think about the ways in which we can help them become better off today and tomorrow. It’s about putting the why back into banking.

Are people thinking about their finances more now than they were a year ago?

Yes. It has become even more important how we show up, how we listen without judgment and give them advice that’s suitable for them. When it comes down to marketing and our role in all of this, I think it is articulating how we help our clients and what differentiates us. How do we continue talking about life and living versus bank and banking? How do we shift the conversation away from being about us to being about them? And if I were to tie a red bow around it all, it’s how does our tagline – “You’re richer than you think” – embody all of the ways that we can be there for our customers and put significance around their lives. I’m absolutely confident that it’s not about being more digital or more modern or cooler or funnier. It’s about being significant.

What with the impact of inflation and high interest rates, it sounds like people are actually feeling like they’re a lot poorer than they think. Is it fair to say that?

I’m not sure I would frame it that way. I think that people are just spending more time thinking about their overall wellbeing and thinking about the need for advice as they navigate all the things they want to do with their money. And I think the need for really personalized advice isn’t just about now but also about the long-term. And I think figuring out what the bank’s role is in that conversation and how we can help them is what’s most important.

The situations you just described sound like the kinds of conversations that you would be having whatever the conditions are. What’s making it challenging now?

It’s twofold. When times are easier maybe you feel you don’t need advice, and that you can do it alone. I think that the antidote to worry is having somebody who is more of an expert than you are, who’s there to listen and ask the right guiding questions. Someone who can develop a plan with you side-by-side. It’s listening without judgment, and conveying the optimistic belief that things can be better. Then if you pivot to the question of, what’s my role as a marketer? It’s about how I communicate to clients that Scotiabank is the better partner to help them with that.

Are you losing sleep about anything else?

The idea that measurement needs to move beyond simple ROI and that the role of marketing in the value chain is not only important, but absolutely critical. As CMO, I have to drive really efficient growth in an increasingly volatile environment. I think about our ability to respond to challenges in a nimble way. I am constantly focused on the customer value efficiency of the marketing function, and continual optimization of brand value. What’s underpinning that is real one-to-one personalization. And increasing media efficiency.

Marketing has been such an effective way of making our dollars go farther as we sweat our way through customer journeys for each segment, removing friction in terms of how we work, how we organize ourselves. Those things are really, really big themes for me. Moving beyond demonstration of value towards detailed performance diagnostics at the individual journey level.

Is this challenge of qualitative versus quantitative evaluation an ongoing source of friction?

It is difficult to do. There were times in my career where I felt marketing was seen as hard to measure from the level of effectiveness and relative contribution. While people recognized the value, they knew it was hard for them to put an actual number against it. I no longer feel that way. And I certainly don’t feel that way at Scotiabank. I think that over the last five years the ability to move beyond ROI and evaluate budgets based on multiple metrics and the efficiency with which we’re able to move is really easy to see. And with tools like multi-touch attribution and media mix modeling we are actually at a point where we can demonstrate that at scale. That’s pretty remarkable.

I would say the other things helping us measure value are connected TV and some of the media channels that you can actually follow through the full digital funnel because you can see it from either a device ID or a customer ID. So I’m not finding it hard anymore, it’s just that now the frontier keeps moving.

I am also thinking about being able to measure regardless of where you start or where you end. You might start digitally but end in a branch, or start in a branch and end digitally. That interconnectedness is where I think measurement is taking us. But more importantly, it’s the ability to not only be efficient from a cost perspective and a relative contribution perspective, but also in putting the customer at the centre of it. How can our data integration allow us to be there for those moments that matter for our clients in a more meaningful way? What do we know about them? How can we anticipate what they need? The more data I have in each step of that journey, the more valuable I can be.