CorpCommsSpreads by Jonathan Parker

Profile

Helen Dunne talks to the young and dynamic head of corporate communications at online bank Egg

Egg-citing at the hen Emma Byrne, director of corporate communications at online bank Egg, read the thousandth headline containing the word ‘cracking’, she sent a bottle of Champagne to the hapless reporter. Five years into the job, Byrne, 35, has scrambled her way through every possible Egg-related pun but, with typical good humour, remains amused by the game. ‘The name got us talked about and symbolises our fresh approach to banking,’ she explains. Headhunted from Weber Shandwick five years ago, Byrne was excited by the prospect of Egg. ‘The obfuscation and lack of transparency in the UK banking market is outrageous,’ she says. ‘It can be made so much easier. The prospect of helping that process won me over.’ Egg, which is 79 percent owned by Prudential, launched with a credit card offering 0 percent interest on purchases and balance transfers. It was revolutionary. Today 83 providers offer similar deals. ‘It was quite difficult to explain initially,’ she admits. A series of groundbreaking humorous TV adverts

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helped; some even assumed cult status among students. Egg is passionate about educating customers on improving their financial circumstances, working closely with consumer groups and the influential Treasury Select Committee. It was the bank’s evidence to the committee that precipitated a change in how credit card companies disclose their charges. Byrne has always enjoyed championing underdogs. More than ten years ago, she persuaded businesses to invest in trouble-torn Belfast; later she took on former client Ikea ‘because it meant everybody could afford a stylish home.’ Today Egg has more than 3 mn customers, and Byrne and her five-man team have won almost every award available. Shortly after joining, she fired Egg’s external agencies, earning the sobriquet ‘Bin ‘em Byrne’. ‘My view is that I won’t hire somebody to answer the phone and pass a message on to the chief executive,’ she explains. ‘We all need to understand the business inside out, and represent that to the media. An external PR can rarely get that close and keep up with the pace of change.’ Byrne – a member of the executive committee, just below board level – reports directly to CEO Paul Gratton. Rumours persist that Prudential will sell Egg. ‘About 2,500 employees work for us; we have to be open and frank with them and as reassuring as possible, as well as working within the reality of City regulations,’ Byrne says. ‘The last 18 months have been challenging.’ And egg-citing! ● helen@corpcommsmagazine.com

‘The obfuscation and lack of transparency in the UK banking market is outrageous. It can be made so much easier’ August/September 2005 CorpComms

Profile

In-jean-ious Rosie Murray-West meets Ros Freeborn, head of communications at Jeans for Genes, and learns about her quest to ‘denimise’ the world

or Ros Freeborn, every day is dress-down Friday; she is the head of communications at Jeans for Genes, the charity that raises money for genetic disease research by organising the ultimate ‘mufti day’. As we speak, just before the annual Jeans for Genes day on October 5, Freeborn’s life is becoming increasingly manic. ‘It is like being a sheepdog,’ she says. ‘My job is to keep everything going in the same direction. There are only nine of us here, with so much to do.’ Jeans for Genes is a collaboration between four genetic disease charities, including Great Ormond Street Hospital, and last year it raised £3 mn for research and help for affected families. This year, Freeborn explains, she is encouraging the public to ‘get denimised’ and pay a couple of pounds for the privilege of wearing jeans to work. She has been working on a massive marketing campaign, and has spent the week doing trial jeans fittings on a number of somewhat unresponsive subjects. ‘We are putting jeans on iconic statues around the country to advertise the day,’ she explains, because this provides visual images that are easy to sell to newspapers, magazines and even radio stations. This year, the statue of the trader in London’s Walbrook Street will be sporting a natty pair of jeans held up by braces, while in Coventry, the famously naked Lady Godiva will be clothed for the first time in a long denim cloak. ‘We have to keep the message very simple, but it needs to be refreshed every year,’ Freeborn says. ‘It is looking good for this year. These things are visually quite quirky.’ For Jeans for Genes, the communications and marketing challenge is clear. The charity must compete with other wellknown causes for money and attention from schools and workplaces. Genetic diseases are harder to explain than other diseases, such as cancer, and yet they are surprisingly common. ‘There is a huge spectrum of genetic disease, everything from a squint or a cleft lip to something like cystic fibrosis, for which there is no known cure,’ points out Freeborn. ‘It is very

CorpComms October 2007

‘Jeans for Genes is incredibly popular with teachers’

hard to put the message across about every facet of genetic disease, and yet it affects one in every 33 babies.’

Target practice Part of the marketing strategy is to target specific employees in workplaces around the country. ‘There are always those who make sure the collecting tin is taken round and the money collected,’ Freeborn explains. The charity sends out packs to these people in August to explain the theme of the next Jeans for Genes day, and takes adverts in national newspapers and workplace magazines running up to the day. ‘We ring up and ask whether they have any spare space to slot in our pre-prepared advertisements,’ Freeborn says. ‘That has been very successful.’ The charity’s roots are in the nation’s schools, however, and this is still a massive part of its marketing. Jeans for Genes started over a decade ago when a school in the West Country held a dress-down day to raise funds for a child with a genetic disorder, and the charity has grown from there. ‘Eighty percent of schools are aware of Jeans for Genes, and it is incredibly popular with teachers,’ Freeborn says. This is hardly surprising: unlike some other charitable days, which can be about throwing custard pies at staff, Jeans for Genes has a serious educational

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October 2007 CorpComms

Profile

uSwitch

in time saves...

Helen Dunne meets Christina Rebollo, head of PR at uSwitch, and learns about passion and campaigning media

CorpComms November 2007

where I could say what I wanted – call a spade a spade, if necessary – to the benefit of consumers. The job at uSwitch offered me the chance to do the kind of PR very few people are able to do.’

Photography: www.charlesshearn.com

hristina Rebollo is no stranger to switching. Born in Madrid, the 30-year-old head of PR at price comparison website uSwitch spent her early life in a succession of different countries. ‘My father worked for IBM on some of the first internet projects, and we moved every three to four years,’ Rebollo explains. ‘But I moved to the UK 12 years ago to attend London University, and I’ve been here ever since.’ When Rebollo graduated with her degree in computing (to please her father) and French (to satisfy her love of literature), she knew what she didn’t want to do – but not what she did. Her first job was in the marketing department of accountancy giant Deloitte, before joining the credit cards business at Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). ‘I realised what I liked most about my job at Deloitte was PR,’ Rebollo recalls. ‘RBS was a fantastic opportunity because it was purely PR, and the credit cards business is huge. We used to say that it was bigger than Boots and McDonald’s.’ Such was its importance within the banking group that the cards business had its own autonomous PR team and agency. ‘We were allowed to be creative,’ says Rebollo. ‘But you also spend about 60 percent of your time within a big bank just fighting fires. There are dozens of customer complaints every week that the media ring up about; you are always defending and reacting. It is true crisis management.’ Although Rebollo stayed with RBS for more than four years, she began to feel uncomfortable about the way high street banks operate. ‘At the time there was a lot of public discussion about consumer over-indebtedness and responsible lending,’ she explains. ‘RBS is an incredible organisation that treats staff extremely well, but banks are there to generate as much profit as possible from customers. I needed to do something different

Really saying something Rebollo joined in 2005, when uSwitch was already well known for its energy price comparison site and was extending its service into other consumer products, such as personal finance and home phone and broadband offerings. She was its first in-house PR person and, as well as boosting its press coverage and profile, she had to build a team, put processes and systems in place, generate press coverage and achieve her very ambitious targets. ‘Coming from an organisation like RBS, it was like chalk and cheese,’ recalls Rebollo. ‘I wanted uSwitch to have the largest share of voice as an independent commentator in each of the industries where we operated. Today, in energy our closest rival is Ofcom, which is a regulator, and we have raised our game in personal finance, beating our nearest rival, Moneysupermarket.com, for the past two years.’ Rebollo now has a team of five – ‘all

‘It’s not enough just to get press coverage and comments in the newspaper; PR has to be there to support the business’

November 2007 CorpComms