Carlota Pico recently sat down with Marta Izquierdo, head of marketing for the EMEA region at IG, a global company that offers financial trading services in 70,000 markets. Marta spoke about the latest trends in financial marketing, aligning IG’s communications with what’s happening in the market and what it takes to be a truly glocal brand. She also explained why it’s vital to stay connected with client-facing teams and to maintain a well-balanced tone.

You can watch the full conversation in the video above or on YouTube, listen to the podcast on Apple and Spotify, and read our recap below.

Key takeaways

• The extreme volatility of the market during the COVID-19 pandemic has given the financial asset trading industry an opportunity to create a lot of analytical and educational content that’s highly valuable to clients right now.

• The finance industry has been leading digital efforts to make trading information easily accessible online. The vast majority of clients (from all generations) prefer to have a digital interaction rather than getting on a call with the service provider. 

• Being a glocal brand means more than just translating global strategies into local languages. Each region has different trends, advertising styles and ways of consuming content that must be taken into account.

• It’s vital for marketing teams to be in constant communication with client-facing teams to ensure that there’s no disconnect between the two. You want to speak the same language as your audience—both literally and figuratively.

• Brands need to maintain a balance of aspirational and relatable tones. Being relatable takes on greater importance at a time when your audience is particularly vulnerable.

We tend to forget that our audience doesn’t only consume our content or our industry’s content. They’re multifaceted individuals, and we need to stay true to that.

Rapid-fire recs

An influencer, professional or role model who you admire?

There are a few amazing women at IG who inspire me, like our commercial director and our chief marketing officer. A more public figure who I follow is Hillary Kerr, the founder of Who What Wear. She has a podcast called “Second Life” where she interviews women who have changed their careers to pursue something completely different, which is really engaging.

Also check out: 8 inspiring content and marketing influencers to follow

A publication or book you’d recommend?

A book I’ve been reading during the pandemic is “The Daily Stoic” by Ryan Holiday. You’re supposed to read one page per day, and it helps me stay focused and gain clarity of thought. 

Also check out: Top 8 content and marketing books to read right now (according to experts)

Your favorite app at the moment?

I’d love to be original, but my favorite app at the moment is Instagram. I always used it for entertainment, but recently I’ve been using it more to educate myself about social issues like Black Lives Matter.

Check out IG’s client testimonials (in Spanish) here and here. And if you speak Swedish, don’t miss this podcast!

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Connect with Marta and Carlota on LinkedIn.

This post was edited by Rishabh Agrawal, a freelance content creator based in Madrid.

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For more on glocal brand marketing:

Glocalization: what it means and which brands are doing it best

The building blocks of brand awareness – Moana Moo-Caille, EMEA brand marketing lead

To see the full transcript, click on page number 2 below.