London 2012 created a large vacuum in Lloyds Banking Group’s communications and public presence. For six years, Olympic and Paralympic storytelling had carried the Lloyds’ brand – before, during and after the sub-prime crisis of 2008. Coming out of 2012, with the Group partly in public ownership, the challenge of replacing their London 2012 activity was heavily influenced by public mood. The concept of sustainability had also begun to take root in business, replacing notions of CSR. Traditional sponsorship, with its suggestion of profligacy and boldness, was out of the question.
Lloyds Marketing commissioned Redmandarin to help them evolve their thinking and shape a new response to their need to remain in the public eye. The initial phase of this work was a thought piece consisting of analysis, research and interviews with leaders from the field of sustainability. Jim Stengel’s Grow provided an early context for this new framing of business, as did research by agencies such as Freud, Edelmann and Havas. Our white paper aggregated contemporary thinking in sustainability to provide a conceptual framework to consider partnerships and brand marketing.
Our white paper, although unable to deliver a definitive empirical response, richly informed the Bank’s thinking and was in part responsible for cementing the next phase of Group’s new corporate positioning, Helping Britain Prosper. It also created a foundation for the evolution of sponsorship into community partnerships, a deliberate fusion of sponsorship and sustainability – influencing Lloyds’ approach for the next decade.
