In the conversation, the team deep dive into the background behind the iconic Winston Wolf advertising campaign that revitalised Direct Line. Dom, Ian and Mark discuss transactional trust vs. relational trust when it comes to customer acquisition. Mark explains his ‘choose your future philosophy’, the joy of pitching, and also gives his take on why they wanted to move on from the Winston Wolf campaigns while they were still popular.
CONTROVERSIAL! While other industry pundits are telling us that ads don’t wear out and need more time to wear in, here’s a marketing leader who broke the rules and reaped reward.
About the Co-Host
Ian Henderson is an experienced creative director, marketing consultant and agency leader specialising in connecting complex organisations with their audiences.
A strong understanding of the business, finance and corporate space together with a broad background in advertising, brand consulting and design give Ian a channel-neutral start point for simple, effective ideas that work across bought, earned and owned media.
He has a proven track record as agency CEO as well as creative director, having transformed business performance and created a new agency from scratch in challenging market conditions. He now leads AML, a London-based agency winning business and creative awards for global finance, tech, charity and government.
Ian is also an articulate broadcaster and published writer, delivering clear opinions and insights on business, marketing and travel for TV, radio and professional media.
About the Guest
Mark is an executive level marketer and experienced non-executive director across listed, public and charity sectors.
In his last exec role at Direct Line Group (DLG) Mark was Managing Director for Marketing & Digital. Mark was a long-standing member of ExCo, driving the strategic direction of the business, including IPO, rebrand, agile transformation and digitisation, and navigation through the COVID-19 crisis. Mark also sat on the Board of DLG Legal Services. Prior to DLG Mark worked at HSBC, 118118 and Mars in a broad range of Marketing and commercial roles.
Outside of DLG Mark is NED for the Marketing Society, Independent Advisor to HMRC, Chair of the School of Marketing, INED for Emma3D – a tech scale-up, and co-host of the "The Places We'll Go" podcast. He also founded a charity event - the Sprintathon - in 2016 which seeks to #beatcancerfaster and has raised £850k to date for Stand Up To Cancer.
Mark is a Fellow of the Marketing Society and of the Marketing Academy, and was recognised as the Marketing Society Leader of the Year in 2018.
Resources:
The advertisements
Direct Line YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@DirectLine
Companies
Dom Hawes: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominichawes
Mark Evans: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-evans-39b7b41
Ian Henderson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iannhenderson
The Places We’ll Go Marketing Show
Mark Evans and Ritchie Mehta’s Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-places-well-go-marketing-show/id1536877345