NO HIDDEN AGENDA

OUR CLIENT

As a financial organisation, GE Capital provided the “engine room” for the storecards, credit cards and loans of retail brands such as Harrods, Mothercare, Debenhams and Top Shop. NOHA were asked to engage with the company at a time of major change to help it to launch a set of financial products direct to consumers under the brand name, GE Money.

THE CLIENT'S CHALLENGE

With a new senior management team in place and tight deadlines in the UK to introduce new products and meet its commitments to the launch of GE Money in line with an internationally agreed rollout, GE urgently needed high level and expert marketing agency support with unusually speedy turnaround times.

OUR SOLUTION

NOHA introduced GE to the concept of the hybrid agency delivering all the benefits of an in-house agency without any of the downsides. Typically an in-house agency delivers strong cost benefits to a client, ensures full commitment of the resources employed to the client’s objectives and enables the client to control the timescales. The downside is that it takes time to recruit and the work coming out of an in-house agency unit is frequently uninspiring and lacks exposure to fresh ideas and ways of doing things from outside of the organisation.

Noha’s solution was to build a hybrid agency on site. This proved highly cost effective for GE at a time when workloads were larger than budgets. We placed a Client Director directly into the client office, allocated dedicated studio resource to GE and were given access to 2 creative desks from which our creative teams could work. The entire project was controlled from within the client while at the same time giving the client access to the extended NOHA agency team all skilled in financial services . It’s amazing how much easier it is to get legal sign off to concepts when the creative team is physically in the same building and can wander down the corridor for a chat!

The Client Director set up a working process to ensure the smooth running of the many projects simultaneously handled. Different product groups were able to discuss projects and instantly receive guidance on the brief and timings.

Work completed included direct mail packs to both consumer and trade prospects, statement inserts, brochures and posters, as well as marketing materials to support the client when pitching for new business.

Despite enormous time pressures, every project was delivered on time and the client benefited from significant budget efficiencies through using its own direct and indirect overheads (office space, heating, lighting etc) rather than paying for the agency’s.