By Will Novosedlik

In this series, we ask top marketers across the country about their biggest fears and concerns. What are the things of marketing nightmares? This week, we catch up with RBC’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer Mary DePaoli about the biggest problems she faces.

DePaoli is responsible for building RBC’s brand and reputation globally across retail banking, insurance and wealth businesses through an integrated approach to brand, marketing, corporate citizenship, sponsorship, social media, and corporate communications. In addition, DePaoli serves as Chair of the Board responsible for overseeing the RBC Foundation, one of Canada’s largest corporate donors. Prior to joining RBC roughly eight years ago, DePaoli held a series of senior roles at Sun Life Financial and TD Bank. In 2012, she was named Marketer of the Year by strategy magazine.

What are you losing sleep over these days?

Everything! I was thinking about this last week and I had to go through a process of asking myself what doesn’t keep me up at night. I was able to whittle it down: relevance. How do brands remain relevant in an era of rapidly changing trends? How can we keep up with the huge expanse of channels through which to reach customers?

We have consumer preferences changing significantly, and with that is an evolving definition of what constitutes value. Staying relevant to customers and prospective customers is difficult. And it’s compounded when you think about banking. We don’t operate in an industry that has a tangible good to exchange at point of sale. So relevance is even more difficult to construct, communicate and deliver.

A key pain point is when marketers try to achieve top-of-mind relevance across a wide range of consumer segments, all of whom expect micro personalization. And then these preferences are more rapidly evolving because there’s just so much more choice and influence placed on a consumer today. Plus, you’re doing this over existing and emerging media.

Reports indicate that we’re going to be in a recession in Canada. There are many contributing factors, including the fact that it takes about 18 months for the full impact of interest rate changes to be felt (they began 17 months ago) and that discretionary consumer spending is held back by inflation and surging borrowing costs. What are your thoughts on that, and what sort of challenges is that going to present to you?

We do a lot of research, as you would imagine. And what we are finding now, week after week, is that six of the top 10 issues facing Canadian consumers right now all tie back to pocketbook issues. So it’s the cost of food, the cost of living and inflation, all of which are driven by changes and anticipated changes in the economy and pressure from so many forces, especially in major cities in Canada. As recently as two years ago, it was very different. What is important to a consumer, even from two years ago to today, is quite different. To deliver value and stay relevant for those consumers as these forces of change are impacting them is really where marketers are increasingly focused.

People’s attitude towards the definition of value is changing. Are you seeing that change? And if so, what sorts of changes are you seeing? How are people redefining value?

What’s interesting is when you start to talk about the solution: how do you solve for relevance? It all starts with research, with data, with insights. I think what good research should do is validate what marketers should be seeing and breathing every day, which is what is happening at the front line.

It’s a validation exercise, as opposed to teaching you something that you don’t already know. I think data and research and insights are critical in helping inform how a market or a company should position itself with a consumer. And I think that the real key is that it’s all down to people. As much as we talk about automation, this is still very much a human-driven world. And banking is still very much a data-informed but human-driven industry. And if value is important, what are the partnerships that will help us deliver more value to that consumer? If value is important, how do we shift or reposition our products so that we are delivering more?

When we think about the delivery of value at the bank, it starts with advice. And then the definition of value is going to be different from a student all the way through to a home owner, to a retiree. So understanding what value is across your segments is where you start. And then it becomes, what do we have and what can we do to deliver that value? For students it might be, I need everyday value. I need credit cards without fees. I need to be able to get three cents off at the pump when I’m filling my car with gas. Value might be in the form of a question like, “Hey, RBC, you’re Canada’s biggest employer. Can you help me with networking and mentoring because you’ve invested so much in skills? Because I need that first job.” So those could be some of the definitions of how we give value to young people.

We’re living in times of high anxiety. We’re also still just coming off the impact of COVID. Is there anything in there that is affecting your plans for the next year or so?

You’ve hit on two really important things. There is, without a doubt, high, high levels of anxiety all over the world. It’s at a community level, it’s at a personal level, it’s at the household level. Young people are worried about getting jobs. You’ve got skills changing very fast as a result of automation. And then there’s the impact of AI.

We did a report that said by 2030, three million jobs in Canada will be affected by the shift to green skills. It’s a necessity for ensuring that Canada is ready to meet its climate goals by 2030 and by 2050. And then there’s forces of change in the economy. If you talk to young people who were significantly affected by COVID, they’d say their mental health is worse now than it ever has been.

And there’s so many other things that we aren’t even mentioning, but all of which boils up into this word of anxiety. As a marketer, that is something I think about a lot. And as a parent, I think about it a lot. And I would say that there is generally a flight to brands that lead when things are hard. It’s very easy to stay quiet when things are difficult, to fly under the radar, to not make that donation, to not show up in a community. But increasingly, as times get more difficult, people look for leaders to lead. I think there’s actually an opportunity for brands to lead on values, on what they believe in and to lead on what is right for society in the long term.