Santander on its shift to one global agency, why it picked Publicis and how ‘data is key’

Santander has said Publicis Groupe’s agency acquisitions in data, influencer marketing and commerce were a key reason why the banking giant awarded its global integrated account to the French agency group.

The Spanish bank consolidated all its creative, media, production and data services with a single agency partner for the first time in January when it appointed Publicis, following a nine-month competitive process, which included rivals IPG and WPP.

Santander needs more “consistent”, “faster” and more “personalised” messaging to get “closer” to customers and to drive effectiveness, Nathalie Picquot, the director of corporate marketing, brand experience and digital engagement at Santander, told Campaign. “Data is key”, especially now that it can be boosted by artificial intelligence, she said.

“We were particularly impressed with Publicis’ data capabilities and the strategic investments they’d made over the past few years,” Picquot added. She cited the agency group’s data unit Epsilon, bought in 2019, and its influencer marketing management platform Influential and commerce arm Mars United Commerce, both acquired last year. 

The bank has adopted what it calls a “One Transformation” strategy as it looks to operate “in a more global way” across different markets and to increase efficiencies. Picquot said the creation of its new “One Agency” model is part of that.

Santander declined to say how many agencies it previously used but House 337 and Carat handled creative and media in the UK. Publicis Flame, a new, bespoke agency unit, will draw on capabilities from across Publicis Groupe, although it has not disclosed which of its agencies are supporting the client. Santander’s corporate logo is a flame.

It is thought Santander spends upwards of €1 billion ($1.05 billion) a year on advertising, communications and related technology, based on its 2024 financial results, although the bank would not comment on that estimate. Advertising spend was €540 million ($566 million) down 10.4% year on year, and communications spend was €404 million ($423 million), down 2.4%. Information technology spend was €2.62 billion ($2.75 billion), up 6.1%. Annual income was up 10% and pre-tax profit up 15%.

Santander operates chiefly in Europe, where its three biggest markets are Spain, the UK and Poland, and the Americas, where its biggest markets are Brazil, the US and Mexico, based on net income.

It is not the only financial services brand that has been consolidating its agency services. UK-based NatWest has just launched an integrated creative and media review and is seeking a single holding company.

Santander has insisted its UK business is not for sale, after recent media reports suggested both NatWest and Barclays have shown interest as potential acquirers. “We are committed to the UK,” Ana Botin, the executive chair of Santander, said at its Q4 results, adding “we can do much more” by “bringing our global scale to benefit the UK”. TV duo Ant and Dec have fronted campaigns for the bank in the UK since 2019.

Picquot responded to Campaign’s questions about Santander’s shift in marketing strategy and global agency review via email.

Why did Santander decide to move to one single agency partner globally and why is it important to integrate different marketing disciplines together?

Our global scale and local market presence give us a unique competitive advantage. Global platforms help us to be more efficient, gain synergies and develop consistent strategies across the group, while providing common tools to monitor our activity, without putting aside local sensitivities and needs from any market or business. 

In regards to integrating the different disciplines, the key lies with data: we believe [that] to maximise the effectiveness of our campaigns and the resulting value for the customer, it is a mix of data-driven creative work as well as data-driven segmentation.

Bringing it all onto a single platform allows us to do this in a more integrated and seamless way. Additionally it helps us roll out our new brand narrative and tagline, “It starts here”, in a more consistent and effective way.

How has Santander's marketing strategy evolved, especially the importance of "data at the centre"? And how does this anticipate the rise of artificial intelligence?

We want to accelerate the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns with data, boosted by AI, to better service our customers’ needs. This means offering more personalised and relevant messaging, and for that, data is key.

Data and insights need to drive our creative executions, as well as which audiences we want to target and when. This is key in performance marketing but also in branding messaging. Data insights need to drive how we engage with customers across the funnel. 

AI will simply accelerate all of this. It will allow us to do so at a much larger scale and in a much shorter time span. 

How is Santander reorganising its wider marketing operations to help the business transformation of the whole organisation and to engage customers better?

Santander has launched a new global operating model [with five different business lines], based on customer focus, geographical and business diversification, and the combination of global scale and local leadership.

We are creating common metrics, frameworks and tools as well as developing hubs in different disciplines to maximise speed, consistency and effectiveness (especially in what relates to working with global platforms), but allowing for local flexibility; execution and customisation remain local. We want to know our customers better to serve them better.

How did Santander run the agency pitch selection process? How were you able to include opinions from all of your key markets, and why did you select Publicis?

We launched the global request for proposal (RFP), in which the largest media and creativity agencies worldwide participated. It was a nine-month process and we believed that it was key that all Santander markets and businesses were closely involved.

We want to leverage global capabilities but respect local sensitivities and execution, so their opinions were very relevant in the process. We also involved other disciplines such as the business, data, tech, AI and cyber teams to ensure different perspectives were taken into account as we evaluated who was best suited to help us with where we want to go. 

Regarding Publicis, we were particularly impressed with Publicis’ data capabilities and the strategic investments they’d made over the past few years, including Sapient (for digital transformation), Epsilon (data), Influential (influencer management platform) and Mars United Commerce (commerce). They have strong data and tech capabilities but also very solid and experienced global and local leadership teams in our footprint.

Their "Power of One" operating model also matches well with our shift to working in a more global way and bringing media and creativity together. We are confident Publicis will help us to connect in a more engaging way with our current and future customers.

You have said Publicis Flame will be “a bespoke solution for Santander designed to deliver creative, media, production and data services”. How does Santander expect to balance these four different services and which is most important?

All these disciplines are equally important. In the end the most important thing is to create valuable campaigns for our customers, and “valuable” can be defined in different ways. They can be relevant, informative, emotional or transactional but in all cases they need to resonate and be useful.

How do you balance global versus local markets for strategy and for execution?

The move to a single agency will help re-enforce the new global narrative and positioning conveyed in the claim “It starts here”, and accelerate data-driven messaging to our customers as well as a more personalised customer experience.

We want to keep working as “One Santander”, sharing best practices and tools to monitor our activity and have the best performance. We also want to keep our local touch taking into account needs from any market or business, and that’s why execution will be local.

Santander has talked to investors about the importance of improving efficiency across its business as part of the "One Transformation" strategy and we can see your advertising spend decreased during 2024. How much is the move to one single agency partner about driving greater efficiency and savings?

We are on a progressive and wide-reaching digital transformation journey that is including our marketing operations. The “One Agency” project is part of this “One Transformation” strategy. It does look for efficiencies which come from doing things at a global scale. However, the main driver behind it is to improve the effectiveness of our campaigns. 

What does success look like?

There are multiple ways of defining and measuring success and these will include the development and implementation of common tools and platforms that allow us to improve our campaign effectiveness, reduce our time to market, reduce acquisition costs, offer more personalised messaging and increase our brand consideration, amongst others.  

Success will be doing all of this with the full support of the different markets and units who we see get more value working together than independently.

How will your brand positioning and more integrated marketing help you to differentiate from other financial services brands? What makes the Santander brand distinctive?

The goal of our brand positioning is to connect us better with our customers and their needs. We want to have a closer, more personal and more empathetic relationship with consumers, and demonstrate that our goal is to help them achieve their goals and ambitions. And, of course, it is great to call on our scale and global presence mixed with local expertise and sensitivities.