UBS is advertising itself as a touchy-feely bank interested in pursuing life's big questions with its clients. finews.asia speaks to Johan Jervøe, the Swiss bank's chief marketer.

Johan Jervøe, UBS is presenting itself to the world in a very different tone of voice than in the past – deeply personal and almost philosophical. Why?

We learned a lot by interviewing persons that represent our target group and also surveying internally, and one thing we realized was that we specifically said we wanted to use a straight-forward tone of voice, transparent, with a little bit of charm. Otherwise you may risk to lose your audience. It's important to speak in the voice of the client, as opposed to what we have to offer.

Also during the interviews we showed our clients mock-ups or videos to receive their feedback. One image was of a man in his mid-50s on the steps of his private plane, his wife has already boarded, and the private banker is just getting a sign-off before the client disappears. The clients we surveyed basically said «none of us look like this and none of us live that life».

Is that how you came upon the partnership with Annie Leibovitz?

We realized that we needed real people and real life, and that is Annie Leibovitz’s talent: she captures in a unique way the essence of what you see in a person. Obviously she’s done that for the campaign: they are all real people, it is real life often behind the scenes. It could be clients or representing a certain client group.

How did the partnership with her come about?

When we started talking to her about making the pictures for our advertising campaign, she realized we have a large diversity agenda. She has been in the middle of a conversation about diversity her entire life and in her work. She said she would love to continue her project «women» from 15 years earlier, and we said that sounds great. That’s the very fast version of the story.

UBS’ current advertising campaign is full of questions – sometimes unanswerable ones. What are you getting at?

Brand campaigns are a broader cultural piece. They should reflect a well-defined mirror of who you are internally. There is no such a thing that can paint a different picture of your company than yourself – that’s probably the most important element.

I have always believed that our employees are the most important brand ambassadors. That’s the reason why we did the internal roll out for four months prior to external go-live as we wanted to know what our employees think of the new campaign, if they can see themselves in it and we wanted to get their inputs. The feedback we received was huge and very positive.

What’s the specific message behind the current campaign?

The campaign was a consequence of our strategic transformation. It is the next chapter.

How is this chapter different from «we will not rest,» the major post-crisis campaign from UBS?

During our interviews for the preparation of the campaign we realized that the events of 2008 and 2009 globally don’t play a large role anymore, with the exception of our home market. A lot had been corrected alone by leadership decisions since then. The campaign «We will not rest» until we have earned back your trust was a reflection of what went wrong. We were transparent about what happened and that it was not good, and we will correct it and until then not rest. It’s a very trustworthy way of communicating. It doesn't make it go away, but it acknowledges what went wrong and promises to correct it. I think we could not have done that with a cheerful or flowery campaign.

Your background is in consumer goods and you worked for McDonalds for many years.

I’m obviously not the typical financial institutions advertiser or Chief Marketing Officer. One thing you learn fairly quickly in this industry is that as human beings, we take money very seriously. And what works is approaching certain things with lightness – I don’t mean in terms of the content quality or honesty! But purposefully: we actually want to have active conversation about what you want to go and achieve by addressing some of the questions you have as a client.

Most private banks would say that.

Yes that is correct, but we say it in the voice of the client. Through our focus on clients we know what is on their mind. Humans, and research indicates that, want to have problems solved and being actively involved in their finances.

Most institutions speak about themselves and products. Frankly, in a conversation about yourself with a banking partner, at some point you want that partner to come in and tell you honestly, «this would be a consequence of that.» We knew from our survey, our clients don't want the answers, they want a spectrum of questions. In the spirit of "What have I not thought about?"

How do you compare how UBS markets itself to clients versus your competitors?

I think our competitors are all companies vying for the attention of the clients so I benchmark myself against other best marketers, not the best banks.

Johan Jervøe has been UBS' chief marketing officer since 2013. He began his career marketing Milka chocolate, spent 13 years with U.S. fast-food giant McDonalds, and later moved to technology company Intel. Jervøe, a Danish national who studied business in Vienna, spoke to finews.com at an event introducing its brand campaign focused on women and diversity initiatives, including a film developed by a mainly female team at French ad firm Publicis and featuring British singer-songwriter Joss Stone.