Why I’m starting a PR firm for the (Boorish) world of finance

One day in the not too distant past I had a — some say — crazy vision about how to create committed customers — wholeheartedly dedicated, loyal and engaged customers — for banks, lenders, payment companies, money managers, and other fintech and financial services companies.

I then wrote the classic Jerry Maguire memo to my agency boss, but the proposal fell flat. And, that’s OK. Happens. Business life isn’t always chipper chipmunks.

My idea, though, never went away. You see, I don’t think finance is boorish. I think it’s an elegant, societally significant industry with boorish marketing.

That’s right, I’m the guy who thinks there’s a societal need for better financial marketing. I believe I can actually make a difference in folks’ lives with what and how I market.

With my new firm, Archie, it’s all I’m going to do. Archie is a PR and communications firm for creating fantastic brands in finance.

You may be wondering about the name Archie. No, it’s not for Archie the comic strip. Just like my last name, Papajohn, has nothing to do with pizza. Sorry to let you down there.

The name Archie is a play on the wise Greek problem solver Archimedes. He had this idea that if you told someone where to stand and gave them a lever long enough, they could lift up and move anything, even our dear Earth.

I see myself in a similar light as a financial marketer.

I’ll work with financial brands that are weighed down by all forms of pressures much of their own making — reputational, technological, competitive, demographic, social responsibility — and help them find a better place to stand and stand out.

I’ll also give financial brands the right levers to lift away those pressures and return only the sought-after weight of more committed customers.

Still, you might be wondering why I’m dedicating my career to financial marketing, having admitting its oafish tendency. You also might be wondering how I can do it well.

To answer the why:

Finance can make an awesome difference or really muck things up.

I think we’d all prefer the former. We need the former.

For example, during the Great Recession I recommended and helped a bank put into place a program to waive relevant fees for customers who had lost their jobs. It simply made no sense to me as a marketer to push customers away, let alone pile on the hurt. My job was to create healthy financial relationships and then, where possible, help the bank keep customers financially healthy over time.

On the flip side, I recently spent nearly three hours at a certain large bank to open a business account. This is a bank where I’ve been a customer for many years. Of course, the three hours focused on the bank’s “know your customer” requirements. Really?

Sure, that was just an inconvenience. And I’m sure you all have one or more serious finance #fail stories. Finance not working can really muck things up. It can literally kick someone out of their home, stop a business idea in its tracks, lose wealth (a lot of it), and mess up a customer experience and expectation in big ways and small.

That’s just not cool. Way cooler for it to be my job to help to not let that happen.

Now comes the harder part. How will I do this?

Creating committed customers is the difference I will make.

Very Drukerian of me, I know. After all, Peter Drucker did roughly say: “the purpose of business is to create a customer.”

I founded Archie to create committed customers. We’ll help to remove the objections customers and other groups may have with a financial business, and get all of them gravitating in the same mutually beneficial orbit.

Think of creating committed customers in this way: Do you wait for a customer to say, “No, thank you. I don’t want to do business with you.” Of course not. You have the opportunity to commit customers (and other stakeholders) to you before they object to a relationship with you.

As you’ve heard before, customers are on a journey. Brands earn commitment along the journey, and sometimes before, but it’s up to the business to keep the journey alive. This can be manifest through awareness-oriented work, content marketing, press relations and so much more.

Above all, I believe finance is, should be, could be, and absolutely must be awesomely and positively different. In becoming difference-makers, financial firms will not only succeed, they will be able to make good on their reason for existence — to create customers and whole societies that can benefit from them.

I’m so excited for this new chapter, and I hope you’ll follow the good work we at Archie intend to do.