It was a Friday afternoon when a bold idea was formally proposed at the National Bank of Canada, the sort of idea major financial institutions tend to shy away from; the kind of idea that is perhaps better suited for a mid-sized company or startup.
The bank’s digital experience team was discussing how it could become more efficient and gain more control over its own data. After speaking with the advertising and campaign teams, it was determined the only possible solution was to bring part of its marketing efforts in-house.
“The next Monday we called the [digital media] agency and said ‘guys, we’re phasing out,'” says Alexandre Truong, who was promoted from senior analyst of marketing campaign performance to lead strategist of programmatic marketing at the National Bank of Canada soon after.
While the National Bank of Canada continues to work closely with its agency partners it now retains control of its data, technology, media buying, optimization and customer intelligence. Establishing an internal agency, according to Truong, changed the company’s marketing dynamic from an agency-led model, to a brand-led model.
Truong, 29, says in spite of the bank’s overall willingness to experiment with an internal agency, the idea was met with some resistance at first. After all, the old model still worked, other banks were yet to try it and many felt marketing efforts should be led by career marketers, not bankers. In spite of those concerns Truong and his team were permitted to experiment with one credit card campaign.
“The [incremental aquisition] lift was 241%,” he says, explaining that the internal teams were more responsible and accountable regarding campaign performance, making them more rigorous in their execution and strategy optimization. “We were doing pretty good in the past, but we had never had that kind of lift before.”
After the success of that initial experiment, bank executives from the credit card business unit asked Truong and his team to manage their campaigns moving forward, and soon after other business units followed.
It’s been less than a year and the bank has since become a leader in internalizing its media buying and planning, not just among Canadian financial institutions, but amongst Canadian brands at large. Now companies of all shapes and sizes are reaching out to Truong for advice on setting up their own internal agency, packing his schedule with speaking engagements and seminars.
“We’re the first bank to do it, in Montreal we’re in the first five or 10 brands to do it,” says Truong. “We’re a big client for an agency, and it’s a hard hit for them to lose our business, but that’s not our intention. Our intention is to grow and become experts in what we do.”
Today the bank enjoys significantly lower costs per acquisition, having improved its reach with lower budgets while decreasing time to market, explains Michael Legare, the senior director of digital experience at the National Bank of Canada.
Truong, for his part, downplays the role he’s played in this game-changing transition, adding that he never intended to land on Marketing’s Top 30 Under 30 list.
“He’s a pretty humble guy, but he’s central to the whole thing,” says Legare. “Alex was 100% responsible for all of the implementation; he was the person who went out to learn all the bits and pieces we needed to learn to supplement our knowledge, he’s the person who made it happen, he’s the person who worked with the partners, he’s been the person guiding the ship.”
Spearheading internalization of media buying and planning doesn’t win Truong many friends in the agency world, but he assures his agency partners that there is still a significant strategic role for them to play moving forward.
“It’s about how we work together to make it work and be more efficient. That’s our vision,” he says. “In the digital space things move really fast. We want to be a leader, so we have no choice but to keep on moving.”
That need to keep moving forward, explains Legare, is a glimpse into the role Truong will play in the Canadian marketing landscape moving forward.
“I think he’s going to become a recognized expert in Canada in terms of programmatic, and he probably already is,” says Legare. “His future is very bright.”
There are insights and anecdotes aplenty in our 30 Under 30 editorial package. To get the scoop on our finalists visit 30U30.ca and read full profiles of Canada’s next set of marketing leaders.
