MEDIA RELATIONS


work,’ says Turner. ‘It was interesting that there was a different way of approaching this. What we learned from the brand and marketing teams, was around how to get on the front foot, proactive campaigning, planning for the long- term, thinking about different channels. What they learned from us was around how to be relevant, how to tap into that zeitgeist of what was happening to make real impactful change, not just in our campaigning to consumers, but in the way that politicians or stakeholders would be talking about us. It was about how to tap into conversations, how to act quickly, how to be flexible. ‘There was a real awakening for


It can be difficult


to lift up your head and think long- term - it is very easy to just focus on what you have on your plates - but we knew that was what we had to do


both teams about how we needed each other, and that worked incredibly well. It took a long time, and we didn’t just stop with our teams. We took it to our agencies as well. We took our agencies to work with the brand and marketing agencies, which meant they were sitting around a table as well. It meant we could roll into campaigns where, at the very start, we could have that discussion together around where our campaigns should focus on, we could have a joined up conversation with the business. We could put that together in an integrated brief; we could brief all the agencies at the same time. They could work together and present back.’ He likens the change in strategy to that undertaken


by former chief executive Ross McEwan. The New Zealand-born banker was appointed in October 2013, shortly after Turner’s arrival, following the departure of Stephen Hester, who had been given the Herculean task of sorting out RBS’s balance sheet. ‘When Ross set out his strategy, we knew it would


be tough but we knew it would work. And we knew this strategy would work; we knew we would have to work through this. It is about being relevant as a team and being able to think through How can we make a positive difference and influence the business in the future, not just now? It was a long journey but we knew we had to do it.’ The imminent approach of the tenth anniversary of


RBS’s ignominious collapse in October 2008, when it was taken over by the government, also focused the mind. ‘We knew that we would be in the news,’ he adds. ‘We started the conversation with the business a year before. We said Whether we like it or not, we are going to be in the news on the financial crisis and there is a real risk if we


32 CorpComms | February/March 2020


don’t do anything that the story will be told for us. There’s also a real risk in the eyes of our customers and consumers that they will think we, as a bank, haven’t changed.’ But it also enabled the media team to


have a timely conversation emphasising that 2018 would be the year that the focus was on RBS as a safe and secure bank. ‘There was a reputational need to show we had changed - we were a very different bank - and the progress and journey we had been on, but there was also a need to show our customers and consumers that we were safe and secure for them, not just when the noise of the anniversary was going on but in the day-to-day threats that they faced,


particularly with the move to digital. ‘What we were able to do was to land a campaign


consistently throughout the year about the bank being safe and secure, so that meant talking to consumers about keeping them safe and secure in this digital age. It also enabled us to talk to our stakeholders about how we’re safe and secure as a bank and the journey we had been on over the last ten years.’ One of the highlights of the campaign was a speed


dating event for customers where ‘fraudsters’ were also in the room. (For fraudsters, read actors.) But the short interactions highlighted to customers the information they unknowingly revealed in a short conversation that might help others guess passwords. ‘I felt incredibly nervous beforehand because


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