LinkedIn data shows video uploads on the platform increased by 45 percent year on year, with the company projecting a further 65 percent growth in video content consumption as video-first formats take hold across the feed. The implication is clear. Financial professionals are no longer just tolerating video. They are actively choosing it.

This shift reflects a deeper change in how audiences consume information. Visual and dynamic formats allow complex financial ideas to be understood faster, with greater emotional resonance, than static text alone. According to HubSpot’s 2025 marketing report, video delivers the highest ROI of any B2B content format, outperforming blogs, static posts and long-form written content.

For financial services brands, the risk is no longer doing video badly. The real risk is not doing it at all.

As highlighted in Financial Marketer’s 2026 predictions, feeds are becoming increasingly video-saturated. Visibility is now dictated by format as much as message. Brands that rely solely on text-based thought leadership are already losing share of attention.

Chris Duffey, author of Superhuman Innovation, puts it simply:

From one-off videos to scalable strategies

The challenge for financial marketers is not whether to invest in video, but how to do it sustainably. High-production hero videos alone are no longer enough. What wins in 2026 is consistency, relevance and cadence.

Leading financial brands are building scalable video ecosystems. This includes short educational explainers, market commentary, adviser interviews, product walkthroughs and leadership perspectives, all designed to be produced efficiently and distributed natively across platforms like LinkedIn.

According to Wyzowl’s 2025 Video Marketing, 89% of businesses use video as a marketing tool, and 98% of viewers say video helps them better understand products and services. In finance, where clarity equals confidence, that understanding is a commercial advantage.

The takeaway for financial marketers is clear. Video is no longer a supporting asset. It is the core delivery mechanism for brand, education and trust in 2026.

If you liked this article and want to know more contact The Dubs Agency we’d love to help.

[For full disclosure: The author used Gemini to research this article while the podcast was created using ElevenLabs]

The post Why 2026 is the year video becomes indispensable appeared first on Financial Marketer.

Where most financial marketing leans on features, rates or seasonal spikes, Monzo chose a bigger ambition – make money knowledge accessible to everyone. Published with Penguin, The Book of Money is a real personal finance handbook designed for people who would never normally pick one up. It is warm, practical and jargon free, shaped by insights from millions of Monzo customers.

The work started with a bold insight. Monzo’s research found that 51 percent of Brits feel they aren’t reaching their financial potential due to lack of money knowledge, and 72 percent of under 34s feel financially held back. That problem became the backbone of the creative idea.

To launch the book, Monzo opened The Book Nook, a hot coral pop up bookstore in Soho. Visitors completed a money goals quiz and walked out with a personalised book cover, one of more than 800 titles generated from 8,000 ideas. It was a simple but powerful way of making money feel human, relatable and personal.

The campaign then scaled nationally through retailers, social content, OOH and a five part video series, “Lessons from the Book of Money”, fronted by creator Shu Lin. The series has already generated over seven million views, turning book chapters into everyday money lessons delivered in under 60 seconds.

Most importantly, Monzo is donating its share of book royalties to Money Ready, a financial education charity supporting around 50,000 people a year.

AJ Coyne, VP Marketing & Growth at Monzo, described the intent clearly:

Congrats Maja Bayyoud Writing Lead, Monzo and your brilliant all-female team and Coral Garvey Creative Director, Monzo, on bringing to life such a wonderful, personal finance guide for people who’d never normally read one!!

Why we love it…

Monzo’s campaign is everything modern financial marketing should be:
• research led
• culturally relevant
• values driven
• creative at scale
• anchored in real human need

Tristan Fawley Executive Creative Director, The Dubs Agency said

It’s a campaign that educates, inspires and elevates the category and a deserving winner of Financial Marketer’s Campaign of the Year 2025.

Congratulations Monzo on a great campaign!

The post ‘Monzo’ wins Financial Marketer 2025 Campaign of the Year appeared first on Financial Marketer.

As we approach 2026, the financial marketing landscape is poised for dramatic transformation. The Dubs Agency reveals six key trends that will reshape how financial brands connect with professional audiences, from the rise of Meta as a B2B powerhouse to the ethical deployment of AI-generated content.

Meta emerges as a serious B2B player

For years, LinkedIn has dominated the conversation around professional audience targeting. But 2026 will mark a turning point as Meta platforms establish themselves as credible alternatives for reaching institutional investors and financial decision-makers.

The data tells a compelling story. According to Brunswick Group’s Digital Investor Survey, 75% of professionals now use secondary social media platforms alongside LinkedIn. These sophisticated investors aren’t limiting themselves to a single channel, they’re consuming content across multiple touch points throughout their research and evaluation process.

Meta’s targeting capabilities have evolved to match this opportunity. Financial marketers can now reach users by job title, target competitors’ audiences, upload matched audience lists, and track conversions with precision that rivals LinkedIn’s offering. Early adopters are already seeing the results, with The Dubs Agency reporting highly cost-effective on-site conversions from professional audiences reached through Meta platforms.

The implication for 2026 is clear: successful financial marketers will need to develop sophisticated multi-platform strategies rather than putting all their eggs in the LinkedIn basket.

Video dominates the content mix

If 2025 was the year video became important, 2026 will be the year it becomes indispensable. Video uploads on LinkedIn have surged 45% year-on-year, and the platform projects an additional 65% growth by 2025, setting the stage for video-first strategies in the year ahead.

This shift reflects changing consumption patterns among financial professionals who increasingly prefer dynamic, visual content over static text. Financial marketers who have been slow to embrace video production will find themselves at a significant competitive disadvantage.

The key will be developing scalable video content strategies that balance production quality with volume. Financial brands should expect to produce regular video content across educational pieces, thought leadership interviews, product explainers, and market commentary to maintain visibility in increasingly video-saturated feeds.

Connected TV reaches critical mass

Connected TV advertising has crossed the threshold from experimental channel to mainstream media buy. CTV refers to television content streamed over the internet through smart TVs, devices like Roku and Apple TV, or streaming services like Hulu and YouTube, rather than traditional cable or broadcast signals.

The contrast with traditional linear TV buying is stark. Legacy television means purchasing dayparts and hoping your target audience is watching, with minimal targeting precision and limited measurement. You’re paying for broad reach during commercial breaks that viewers routinely ignore or skip.

CTV transforms this equation entirely. Financial marketers can now target households based on demographics, job titles, and viewing behaviour – reaching CFOs, wealth advisors, or institutional investors with precision impossible in traditional TV. Ads appear within streaming content in non-skippable formats, and detailed attribution shows which households viewed and what actions they took afterward.

The numbers reflect this shift, eMarketer reports in 2025, CTV ad spend in the United States is projected to reach US$33.3 billion, representing nearly 10% of total digital advertising expenditure. Statistic data shows these ads deliver a 95% completion rate, dramatically outperforming traditional video advertising. Most tellingly, 98% of LinkedIn users now watch connected TV, substantially higher than the 83% who watch linear television.

Professional audiences have migrated to streaming platforms, yet many financial brands continue allocating significant budgets to traditional TV based on legacy buying patterns. The question for 2026 is no longer whether to invest in CTV, but how quickly you can shift budget from outdated linear approaches that are delivering diminishing returns.

Immersive storytelling transforms long-form content

The traditional PDF report is facing extinction. In its place, financial marketers are embracing immersive, interactive digital experiences that drive dramatically higher engagement.

Nuveen’s Equilibrium Institutional Investor report exemplifies this evolution. Built using no-code responsive page development tools, the report features interactive infographics, dynamic charting, and multi-chapter navigation that guides readers through complex investment themes. The content is available in multiple languages including English, German, and Japanese, extending its reach across global markets. And won a Gramercy Financial Content Award, Gramercy Asset Management Content Marketing Award and was shortlisted for the 
Financial Services Forum Marketing Effectiveness Awards.

As Flourish reports, the results speak for themselves interactive reports generate 73% more read time compared to traditional PDFs. For financial marketers struggling to capture attention for lengthy thought leadership pieces, this format provides a path to making substantial content feel approachable and engaging.

In 2026, expect to see interactive annual reports, market outlook pieces, investment strategy guides, and ESG reports that leverage these tools to transform static content into immersive experiences.

AI-Powered podcasts scale audio content

Audio content has long promised efficiency for time-pressed financial professionals, but production barriers have limited its adoption. AI-powered podcast creation tools are removing these obstacles, enabling financial marketers to atomise written editorial content into conversational audio formats at scale.

These platforms can transform blog posts, research reports, and articles into natural-sounding podcast conversations. They offer the ability to incorporate recorded stakeholder voices, adjust scripts for compliance approval, and publish directly to platforms like Spotify.

The Financial Marketer podcast demonstrates this capability in practice, showing how AI can elevate editorial content without requiring extensive audio production resources. For financial brands with substantial written content libraries, this technology offers an efficient path to reaching audiences who prefer audio consumption.

Multilingual video becomes accessible

Global financial brands have long struggled with the cost and complexity of producing video content for multiple regional markets. AI avatar technology is dramatically reducing these barriers, making multilingual video strategies accessible to organisations of all sizes.

These tools can take existing video content and rapidly generate versions with AI avatars speaking in different languages while maintaining consistent messaging and visual quality. The technology has matured to the point where the output appears natural and professional, suitable for external communications rather than just internal use.

For financial marketers operating across multiple geographies, this capability enables truly localised video strategies without multiplying production budgets. Expect to see increased use of this technology for everything from CEO communications to product explainers to educational content throughout 2026.

Josh Frith, Founder The Dubs Agency – AI Avatar speaking in Spanish and Mandarin.

Preparing for 2026

These six trends collectively point toward a financial marketing landscape that is more visual, more automated, and more distributed across channels than ever before. Success in 2026 will require financial marketers to embrace new platforms, invest in video capabilities, experiment with AI tools, and develop truly multi-channel strategies that meet professional audiences wherever they consume content.

The organisations that thrive will be those that view these changes not as threats to traditional approaches but as opportunities to achieve greater reach, engagement, and impact with the audiences that matter most to their business.

If you enjoyed this article and would like to know more contact The Dubs Agency we’d love to help.

[For full disclosure: The author used Claude to research this article while the podcast was created using ElevenLabs]

The post 2026 financial marketing predictions that will transform the industry appeared first on Financial Marketer.

Dreamforce gathered the brightest minds in AI and enterprise innovation to explore how intelligent systems are reshaping industries. As Google CEO Sundar Pichai said,

The private capital market is one of the sectors being transformed most rapidly. According to McKinsey’s, Global Private Markets Report 2025, private markets have grown nearly 20% annually since 2018. The convergence of technology, capital, and investor behaviour is driving a generational shift in how wealth is created and accessed.

At VentureCrowd, our mission is to open these markets – responsibly, inclusively, and at scale. That means building technology capable of matching capital with innovation while keeping trust and compliance at the core. Our AI journey started years before “agentic” became a headline term. We developed proprietary systems powered by data science and machine learning that deliver measurable outcomes for investors, founders, and partners alike.

Now, as we enter the agentic era, this technology is not AI for its own sake. It’s an extension of our mission to make private investing more transparent and accessible. Every AI agent we deploy brings us closer to a world where ideas, capital, and human potential move forward together.

Lessons from Dreamforce 2025

Three key themes stood out from this year’s event:

1. Speed with control and reliability – the winning systems combine creativity with precision and stability.
2. Context as the foundation of intelligence – connecting human and enterprise knowledge is what makes AI impactful.
3. Conversation as the interface – natural language is becoming the bridge between humans and systems, turning data into dialogue and dialogue into action.

These insights reinforce how we’re evolving Kai, our proprietary AI framework that powers the next generation of VentureCrowd’s platform. Built on a decade of data and analytics, Kai connects every part of our ecosystem, from digital experiences and fund management to compliance, payments, and cybersecurity.

For founders, it can turn a pitch deck into a live, compliant campaign in seconds. For investors, it surfaces personalised opportunities aligned with their goals. For our team, it delivers real-time intelligence that helps us operate faster, smarter, and more efficiently.

As I shared at Dreamforce,

Building the future of digital capital

Dreamforce captured a powerful truth, digital superintelligence is coming. And as Refik Anadol reminded attendees,

For VentureCrowd, that means using AI to accelerate access, amplify trust, and deliver scale across private markets. We are moving faster than ever, deploying real use cases, scaling innovation across every layer of our technology stack, and empowering our teams to build, test, and iterate at record speed.

The world’s most advanced enterprises are now building toward the same goals we set years ago. VentureCrowd is leading the charge into this next chapter of private capital markets and digital capital raising,  where technology powered by humans opens new frontiers for investors, founders, and the future of wealth creation.

If you liked this article and want to know more contact The Dubs Agency we’d love to help.

[**Full disclosure: The views and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author. They do not reflect the views or opinions of any organisation or entity.]

The post How agentic is opening private capital markets at global scale appeared first on Financial Marketer.

Campaign overview

Airwallex’s new platform launched with a dramatic visual metaphor, six films show outdated banking systems being smashed, crushed or flattened, a wrecking ball tearing down a bank, a steamroller obliterating a payments screen, a wrench destroying a smartphone delayed by account opening.

The narration reframes business finance – no longer slow, clunky and hidden behind opaque fees, but modern, AI-powered, globally connected, and designed for business growth. The suite of offerings includes faster foreign-exchange transfers, international A-accounts opened within minutes, AI-enabled spend management and lower-fee payments.

The media rollout spanned digital screens (BVOD, SVOD, YouTube), social platforms (TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn), office and transit out-of-home placements (airports, train stations, major city hubs) to ensure broad business-decision-maker reach.

Why it works

• It overturns convention: business-finance marketing often speaks in cautious, feature-led language. This campaign uses high-impact metaphors to dramatise disruption.

• It links brand to commercial purpose: the visual destruction isn’t for spectacle, it symbolises the replacement of legacy systems with Airwallex’s next-gen platform.

• It targets decision-makers and influencers across touchpoints, not just users: the media strategy ensures the message hits both C-suite and operator audiences.

• It brings strong momentum: Airwallex is delivering scale, as VP of Marketing APAC Andrew Balint notes in Campaign Brief

  “ $900 million annualised revenue, $200 billion in transaction volume, and 13,000+ new customers in Q2 2025 alone.”

And the campaign was built on real customer insights, Andrew, VP of Marketing says

Airwallex’s campaign sets a strong benchmark for the Financial Marketer Monthly Awards – it is visually striking, strategically grounded, globally scalable and commercially aligned. For November’s win, it ticks every box and in doing so, it signals that finance brand marketing can be bold, clear and disruptive while remaining on message and on purpose.

Congratulations Airwallex on a great campaign!!

The post ‘Airwallex’ wins Financial Marketer’s November Campaign of the Month appeared first on Financial Marketer.

Customers no longer choose financial brands solely for performance. They choose those that reflect their worldview, brands that understand what money means to them beyond transactions.
This is where value-driven marketing becomes not just a communications strategy, but a business imperative.

Why values matter more than demographics

Demographics tell us who your customers are. Values reveal why they choose you.

Two clients with the same income might make opposite decisions, one invests for growth, another for security. One saves to protect family, another to achieve independence.

Understanding these underlying motivations – freedom, security, belonging, achievement, purpose helps brands move beyond product-centric messaging to emotionally resonant storytelling.

According to WARC’s global study, campaigns that reflect a person’s dominant value outperform others by up to 28 percentage points in effectiveness. The report identified six core value archetypes – achievement, freedom, pleasure, purpose, security, and tradition and found that financial services ads rooted in achievement and tradition perform significantly above average.

Trust is built on shared values

In a low-trust industry, credibility can’t be bought with ads, it’s earned through alignment.

• Wealth management clients seek empowerment, not just returns, but clarity and control.

• Insurance clients value care, protection that feels human, not transactional.

Investment platforms attract those motivated by growth and progress, people who want to build a future that reflects their ambitions.

WARC states in The Feed that

And global studies reinforce this:

• EPAM found 63% of customers cite trust as their main reason for choosing a bank.

• Accenture’s Global Banking Consumer Study 2025 revealed that high-trust banks achieve 1.7× faster revenue growth.

• The Financial Brand (2024) reported that 61% of consumers prioritise trustworthy information above convenience.

Trust isn’t a soft metric, it’s a growth multiplier.

How to build a value-driven marketing strategy

1. Redefine audience insight

Go beyond demographics to value-graphics, uncover what truly drives financial behaviour.
Use qualitative interviews, social listening, and psychographic mapping to identify motivations such as:

• “I want to protect my family.”

• “I want to feel in control.”

• “I want my money to align with my ethics.”

2. Articulate your brand’s belief system

Define what your brand believes about money, success, and responsibility.
DBS’s “Live more, bank less” and Citi’s “Let’s Get It Done” are examples of belief-driven platforms that simplify complexity while empowering progress.

3. Find the intersection

The sweet spot lies where your brand’s beliefs meet your audience’s values.
This is the foundation for consistent storytelling that builds familiarity, trust, and preference.

4. Embed values across every touchpoint

From the tone of a client email to how your app surfaces advice, consistency reinforces authenticity. As WARC says in What Value Are You Creating for Your Customers? (2024)

5. Measure what matters

VDM demands new metrics, traditional KPIs like CTR or CPL don’t capture emotional connection. As WARC noted in Values-Based Marketing Needs a New Type of Measurement (2019) “If values are the new growth engine, our measurement models must evolve to prove their impact.”  

Leading banks are tracking brand warmth, advocacy, and trust delta, qualitative and quantitative metrics that predict long-term retention better than short-term conversions.

The ROI of values

In finance, loyalty is fragile. Rates can be matched, apps replicated but trust born from shared values is defensible.

Value-driven brands don’t just market products; they help people live by their principles, security, freedom, legacy, or progress.
And when your marketing reflects those values, you don’t just earn attention, you earn belief.

As the Edelman Trust Barometer 2024 reveals

Simon Sinek founder of The Optimism Company, explains why values, not numbers, are the key to building trust, loyalty and lasting success.

The post Value-driven marketing, building trust and connection in financial services appeared first on Financial Marketer.

Social and audience listening is the continuous monitoring and analysis of online conversations across social media, forums, blogs, and review sites to understand what people think and feel about your brand, your competitors, and your market. As Jeremy Goldman, marketing strategist at EMARKETER says

Key stats from Quorage include:

• Global social listening market: USD 18.43 billion by 2030, growing at 13.9% CAGR

• 61% of businesses already use a social listening system

• 82% say it’s essential for strategic planning

• 90% report it improves brand reputation and loyalty ()

In a world where AI surfaces only the most relevant and credible information, listening gives financial and GEO marketers an insight advantage by revealing what audiences want before algorithms do.

Why Social Listening matters for GEO (Global, Regional, Local) strategies

a. Brand health and sentiment tracking
AI engines rank authoritative, trusted brands higher. Monitoring sentiment across regions helps identify risks before they appear in generative summaries.

b. Competitive and market intelligence
Identify what drives engagement for competitors in each region. According to Britopian’s State of Social Listening 2023, brands are expanding listening beyond owned channels to capture early trend signals.

c. Regional and cultural localisation
Audience listening reveals how local language, slang, or cultural cues influence perception. Platforms like Pulsar show how regional narrative analysis helps tailor creative to local sentiment.

d. Crisis detection and opportunity response
With geo-tagged monitoring and real-time alerts, marketers can respond to emerging sentiment shifts, mitigating issues or capitalising on viral moments.

How to build a GEO-Aware listening framework

Britopian’s, report puts it perfectly

What tools and technologies are driving listening innovation?

• AI and NLP (Natural Language Processing): Enables understanding of cultural nuance, sarcasm, and emotion.

• Video analytics: Fastest-growing segment (around 18.7% CAGR), crucial for TikTok, YouTube, and short-form content.

• Predictive intelligence: Identifies trend inflection points before they peak.

• Real-time dashboards: Trigger alerts when brand mentions or sentiment shift by region.

• Privacy and ethics: As Creative News research shows, new standards demand responsible listening that respects data sovereignty and cultural sensitivity.

How GEO listening improves generative visibility

Generative engines such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity now summarise and surface patterns of trust. Audience listening data supports five critical visibility factors:

1. Authority signals: Social proof and sentiment create credibility that AI models prioritise.

2. Local context: Region-specific data ensures relevance in generative responses.

3. Recency: Real-time listening keeps your brand in the current dataset window.

4. Language diversity: Localised tone and sentiment feed better multimodal recall.

5. Cross-channel consistency: AI systems detect consistency across mentions, posts, and citations.

In short, listening data strengthens the semantic web around your brand.

What’s next – AI, GEO and the evolution of listening

• Multimodal listening: AI will soon interpret tone, gesture, and visual cues in social video.

• Predictive GEO dashboards: Models will forecast regional market shifts before they happen.

• Integration with generative platforms: Listening insights will directly inform AI summarisation and ad placements.

• Human-in-the-loop strategy: Ethical oversight ensures bias detection and emotional accuracy.

“Brands that use social media as a broadcast system will end up feeling pretty lonely.”  Kim Garst

Key takeaways for GEO marketers

In the era of generative discovery, listening is optimisation.
It fuels visibility, trust, and local resonance. The brands that win are those that:

• Listen deeply before creating.

• Localise intelligently, not automatically.

• Integrate listening data into every part of content, creative, and media strategy.

When you listen well, your audience doesn’t just find you in AI results. They believe you belong there.

If you enjoyed this article and would like to know more contact The Dubs Agency we’d love to help.

[For full disclosure: The author used Perplexity to research this article while the podcast was created using ElevenLabs]

The post Why Social and Audience Listening is the new competitive advantage appeared first on Financial Marketer.

In this article, we’ll explore:

• The promise and current adoption of AI in finance

• What parts of storytelling AI already handles well

• What it struggles with (and often fails)

• Strategic guidelines and guardrails

AI in finance

Before diving into storytelling, it helps to understand where AI has already taken root in finance, because storytelling builds on those foundations.

• According to NVIDIA’s State of AI in Financial Services survey, 43% of respondents already use generative AI in their organisations.

• A KPMG global study of ~2,900 finance executives found many are rolling out AI across accounting, planning, treasury, risk and tax operations.

• All About AI reports the global AI in finance market is estimated at USD 38.36 billion, with forecasts suggesting it could reach USD 190 billion by 2030.

These numbers show that AI is no longer hypothetical in finance, it’s increasingly operational. But most adoption to date is in back-office, pattern recognition, anomaly detection, forecasting, and document processing rather than full narrative creation.

What AI can do for financial storytelling

Here are areas in the storytelling pipeline where AI is already quite capable and where it adds genuine value:

1. Data ingestion, structuring & anomaly detection

One of the unglamorous but crucial steps in storytelling is preparing the raw financial data: cleaning, aggregating, ensuring consistency, flagging anomalies or outliers. A.I. (especially machine learning models) excel at pattern detection, outlier identification, consolidation across data sources, and detecting correlations that might be non-obvious.

2. Draft narrative / first pass commentary

Generative AI can transform processed financial data (e.g. revenue by segment, margins over time, variance from budget) into narrative text. For example, it can write a first-draft “management commentary” or “insight summary” that says: “Segment A’s margin contraction in Q2 was largely driven by input cost inflation, partially offset by higher volume in Region X …”

KPMG notes that generative AI, combined with finance, “can create better speed and efficiency by eliminating redundant or manual activities, allowing finance professionals to focus on higher-value tasks”, though “it is only as good as the underlying data and well-engineered prompts.”

3. Visualisation & adaptive charts

AI tools can suggest optimal chart types, build dynamic visuals, or even animate transitions. Some platforms can auto-select chart frames, colour schemes, or overlays (e.g. revenue trend + benchmark). These visuals support the narrative by making data more digestible and engaging.

4. Text-to-video & multimodal storytelling

The newer frontier: converting narrative and visuals into short videos or animated summaries. Platforms like Mootion the “AI financial explainer video maker” help turn complex financial concepts, investment strategies, wealth-management advice and personal-finance topics into video stories, combining chart animation, voiceover, scene transitions and narrative text. As video becomes more consumed in finance communications, social media, or internal updates, this capability is significant.

In fact, as Finextra reports UBS has begun deploying AI-generated avatars of its analysts to deliver video research content to clients,  scaling video production while freeing analysts to focus on deeper insights.

5. Personalisation & scenario variants

Because AI is programmable, it can generate variant narratives tailored to different audiences (e.g. investors vs operations) or scenarios (optimistic, base, downside). It can also more easily produce “what-if” or scenario-driven storylines by combining data inputs with narrative templates.

What AI Can’t (or doesn’t reliably) do yet

While expectations are high, there remain several limitations, risks, and failures that financial storytellers should be wary of:

1. Deep domain insight, judgment & nuance

Financial storytelling often hinges on domain understanding, intuition, subtlety, and judgment calls (e.g. regulatory implications, market sentiment, qualitative drivers). AI can suggest patterns, but cannot reliably substitute for an expert’s interpretive reasoning. It may miss counterintuitive insights or over-emphasise correlations that lack causal basis.

2. Contextual consistency over long narratives

AI may produce internally inconsistent narratives, especially over longer explanations (e.g. repeating contradictory statements, drifting focus). Ensuring logical narrative flow, contextual coherence, or a crisp “through-line” in longer documents remains challenging for many generative models.

3. Handling ambiguous, conflicting or missing data

When data is incomplete, contradictory, or ambiguous, A.I. struggles. It may attempt to hallucinate or smooth over gaps, potentially generating misleading statements. Human oversight is required to vet and correct.

4. Creativity, metaphor, tone & audience empathy

Storytelling is also about voice, emotion, resonance. AI generally lacks true creativity, empathy or deep sense of audience feedback. It may write pedestrian statements or fail to tailor tone dynamically. The “human edge” intuition, rhetorical framing, emotional resonance remains a competitive differentiator.

As Scott Winters, puts it in this Financial Gravity article

5. Bias, error, hallucinations & overconfidence

Generative models can hallucinate facts, misstate numbers, invent references, or misinterpret prompt context. Unless constrained carefully, these outputs risk inaccuracy or misleading claims. Rigorous validation, guardrails, and fact-checking remain essential.

6. Governance, auditability & compliance

In regulated financial environments, story content (especially forward-looking statements or risk disclosures) must be auditable and defendable. A.I. models often operate as “black boxes.” Ensuring traceability (which data used, which prompt, who edited) is a complex but necessary requirement for responsible use.

7. Visual / video limits

Although AI video generation is advancing, there are limits: high resolution, long-form coherence, facial realism, lip-sync accuracy, audio synchronisation and contextual transitions remain challenging. Text-to-video models are computationally intensive, limited in output length, and prone to artifacts.

Strategic guidance & best practices

Here are the principles and guardrails for integrating A.I. into your financial storytelling workflow:

KPMG emphasises that generative AI’s effectiveness depends heavily on “well-engineered prompts” and robust embedding into finance workflows.

What the future looks like

• Multimodal models are advancing: systems like MAViS or MM-StoryAgent research projects attempt to coordinate script writing, visuals, character modelling and audio in unified storytelling pipelines.

• Text-to-video models like Veo (from DeepMind Google) are evolving to support longer content with improved audio/video sync.

• More financial institutions will adopt hybrid avatars (as with UBS), enabling scalable video research and narration.

• The frontier will shift from “drafting commentary” to “interactive, live narrative agents” (e.g. investor dashboard that tells evolving stories in real time).

• Regulation, explainability, bias controls, and domain certification will become prerequisites for adoption in regulated settings.

AI is a powerful enabler in the financial storytelling toolkit, accelerating data work, drafting commentary, generating visuals, and even producing short video stories. But it is not a substitute for the human judgment, domain nuance, narrative sense, and accountability that financial storytelling demands.

The ideal path is augmentation, not replacement: let AI handle repetitive or structured tasks, while human experts refine, validate, add insight, tone and integrity. With disciplined guardrails, iterative adoption, and transparency, AI can amplify storytelling reach without compromising trust.

If you enjoyed this article and would like to know more contact The Dubs Agency we’d love to help.

[For full disclosure: The author used Perplexity to research this article while the podcast was created using ElevenLabs]

The post What AI Can and Can’t do for financial storytelling appeared first on Financial Marketer.

What is Generative Engine Optimisation?

Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is a content strategy designed for AI-powered search engines like ChatGPT, Google SGE, and Perplexity. Unlike traditional SEO, which focuses on rankings in search results, GEO focuses on visibility inside AI-generated answers.

• Seer Interactive reports brands that applied GEO saw 40% more inclusion in generative search responses

Why does GEO matter?

• AI is becoming the default search tool: Gartner predicts 70% of search traffic will be powered by generative AI by 2028.

• Generative engines don’t just rank pages, they summarise, paraphrase, and cite.

• If your content isn’t structured to be machine-readable, it risks invisibility.

As Mahesh Chand says, in this C# Corner article  

So how do generative engines process content?

AI engines:

1. Retrieve relevant content chunks.

2. Summarise into natural language.

3. Cite or paraphrase trusted sources.

Dense, unstructured articles get skipped. Structured, chunked answers are easier to retrieve and cite.

Example outline for GEO-optimised content

1. Quick answer

2. What is GEO?

3. Why does it matter?

4. How generative engines work

5. GEO playbook (9 structural rules)

6. Example Q&A / FAQ section

7. Tools to implement GEO (schema generators, content audits)

8. Measurement and KPIs

9. References and sources

How to measure GEO success

Traditional SEO metrics (rankings, CTR) are not enough. New GEO metrics include:

• Share of Answer (SoA): % of queries where your content is cited.

• Citation impressions: number of times your content is pulled into AI answers.

• Engine coverage: how many AI platforms (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity) cite you.

• Sentiment of citation: positive, neutral, or critical context.

In summary

Generative engines are rewriting the rules of visibility. To succeed:

• Start each section with a clear, direct answer.

• Structure content for machines with Q&A, lists, and schema.

• Signal authority with stats, quotes, and sources.

• Track new GEO metrics, not just old SEO ones.

The brands that embrace GEO now will own the generative search landscape of tomorrow.

FAQ: Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO)

1: What is Generative Engine Optimisation?
A: Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is the process of structuring content so AI search engines can easily understand, summarise, and cite it in their responses.

2: How is GEO different from SEO?
A: SEO focuses on ranking pages in search engines like Google. GEO focuses on visibility inside AI-generated answers.

3: Why is GEO important in 2025?
A: Gartner predicts 70% of search traffic will be powered by generative AI by 2028. Content not optimised for GEO risks being invisible.

4: What type of content do generative engines prefer?
A: Engines prefer short, well-structured chunks, lists, tables, statistics, and Q&A formats over long narrative text.

5: How can I make my content AI-friendly?
A: Use query-style headings, answer first in each section, add stats and expert quotes, break up content with lists, and embed FAQ sections.

6: Do expert quotes help with GEO?
A: Yes. Quotes signal authority. AI engines are more likely to cite trusted expert opinions alongside statistics.

7: What role does structured data play in GEO?
A: Schema markup (FAQPage, HowTo, Article) helps engines interpret your content and boosts its chance of being cited.

8: How often should I refresh content for GEO?
A: Refresh and timestamp content every 3–6 months to maintain freshness and trustworthiness for AI citations.

9: What are the main GEO success metrics?
A: Share of Answer (SoA), citation impressions, engine coverage across platforms, and sentiment of citation.

10: Can GEO replace SEO?
A: No. SEO remains vital for traditional search visibility, but GEO is an essential layer to ensure inclusion in AI-driven search results.

[For full disclosure: The author used Perplexity to research this article while the podcast was created using ElevenLabs]

The post How to structure content for Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) appeared first on Financial Marketer.

Neuro branding uses neuroscience and behavioural science to shape how customers feel about financial brands, not just what they think. For financial marketers in banking, fintech, insurance or wealth management, this means using insights from how brains process trust, risk, reward, visual cues and storytelling, so that marketing works not only on logic but on emotion.

Tools may include eye tracking, EEG, user-interface testing, biometric feedback, and behavioural experiments. The goal is to reduce friction (especially around complex financial decisions), enhance trust, increase retention, and improve lifetime value.

Why neuro branding matters for financial marketers

Numbers & evidence

• A Katalysts.net study showed that message retention in financial content can improve by up to 40% when neuromarketing or psychology-informed tactics are used.

• In a MDPI research project with banking websites, eye-tracking and heat maps revealed that users’ immediate focus (first 20 seconds) on key trust signals (e.g. security badges, clear pricing, simple layout) correlated strongly with lower bounce rates.

• Finextra research in content marketing for financial services, shows emotional storytelling (as opposed to fact-only content) has been shown to drive higher engagement, improve brand trust, and shorten sales cycles.

As Lisa Joyce from the The Financial Brand says, Neuroscientists have an expression:

That means even as financial products become more digital, consumers are still driven by basic emotional and neurological drivers: fear, reward, loss aversion, trust. Neuro branding helps financial marketers speak to those drivers, not just features, terms or numbers.

How financial brands can apply neuro branding in practice

• Design interfaces for trust: Simple, clean UI; clear labels; calming colour palettes; minimal jargon; early display of credibility symbols. UXDA has documented how emotional motivations and simplification reduce anxiety in digital banking.

• Storytelling and framing: Use investor/customer narratives, real-life goals, aspirational frames (saving for education, retirement, happiness) rather than technical specs. Finextra reports these approaches trigger emotional engagement and memory.

• Micro-nudges and small wins: For fintechs or savings apps, UXDA reveals celebrating increments (goals reached, progress bars, reminders) produces dopamine feedback, improving retention and habit formation.

Research in consumer neuroscience by Kenning and Hubert (2008) indicates that subconscious, emotional factors strongly influence our decisions. In finance, these factors are magnified by everyone’s subconscious fears about money, risk and loss. Leveraging neuromarketing principles allows brands to tap into users’ natural motivations, creating engaging, trust-building experiences that build meaningful financial well-being.

Considerations and challenges

• Cost vs ROI: Some neuroscience tools are expensive. Financial firms need to pilot small and measure carefully (A/B tests, control groups) to ensure the investment pays off.

• Compliance & transparency: Regulatory constraints in finance require that emotional claims don’t mislead, that risk is clearly disclosed, and that message framing is ethical.

• Trust is fragile: If consumers feel manipulated, that can harm reputation. Neuro branding must aim for emotional resonance, not manipulation.

For financial marketers, neuro branding is more than a “nice to have.” It’s fast becoming a competitive advantage in markets where trust, emotion, and clarity matter as much as product features. Embed science-backed methods; measure results; act on findings. Use emotional cues, stories, interface clarity. Do it well, and you’ll see better retention, lower churn, higher lifetime value and stronger brand equity.

[For full disclosure: The author used Perplexity to research this article and the podcast was created using ElevenLabs]

The post What is Neuro branding in finance? appeared first on Financial Marketer.