The Video Pioneer

Nice to be here, nice to see you. It's a special presentation for me because last year, nine months ago, I actually left Jyske Bank. I've been for the bank, worked for the bank for 35 years and I thought it was time to move on. There was a shift in the CEO, which you will see in my presentation. The previous CEO meant a lot to me. So, yeah, now I have moved on and I'm happy that TwentyThree gave me this opportunity to do probably the last presentation where I'm talking about Jyske Bank as a video-first company and how we built our own TV station and turned the bank into a media company. So I'll take a journey down memory lane and show you some of the crazy things we've done throughout the years. And I've been reflecting, how did it all start? How did we get into this media company thing? And of course, it started with our previous CEO, Anders Dam, when he became CEO in 1997. It was a big change. Anders was and is a visionary communicator and a man with a lot of vision. How a company, how a bank can challenge the media landscape. So it started with him, but it took off 26 years ago, September 1999. And I'd like to take you back. It's a long time ago. For the first time in the history of the bank, all employees were invited to a party in one place. The invitation was brief. It said that in the morning there would be a statement from our new CEO. In the afternoon, there would be music and in the evening, dinner and dance. All employees arrived to the city of Vejle, where the venue was, and they arrived in buses to the parking lot. It was a rainy, windy September day. Some of them might have noticed that on the parking lot, there was a big black limousine with a Swedish flag on. When they got into the venue, it was not cozy like this. It was only neon lights and there was played some sad classical music. And on the stage, they could see our newly CEO, our head of board. And there was two other men on the stage. And if they look closely, they could see that they had kind of Swedish flag on. Swedish names. And yeah, then this happened. I did it. We have received a friendly invitation from a Swedish bank that would like to take a friendly letter of acceptance from the Jewish bank. And hello everyone. We are fascinated by your orientation, by your Jewish products. I know that this is probably a surprise for the big guys. Lasse Olin, now they have the opportunity to get a greeting. Are there any cuts? Are there any fires? Just say it directly. Yes, a lot of adjustments will be necessary in Silkeborg and Copenhagen. We might get into a big Scandinavian company that will give us the opportunity to get in touch with some of the other customers than we have done today. Thank you for your positive attitude, which I of course share to 100%. Thank you. Would you like to refer to a Swede? I don't want to. What you have just experienced, is something we made a hole in, in connection with Mr. Nielsen's jubilee. We found a term in the German football. Some colleagues were actually crying and our union people were gathering back in the corner having an emergency meeting. But it was just a joke. And afterwards we had one hell of a party, of course. But we also learned something about communication that day. We learned the value of telling every employee the same thing at the same time, instead of deriving it down. We learned how to move the communication from the brain to the heart. There was nothing, we knew, told at that day. Every employee knew that there was a risk of a takeover from a German or Swedish bank, but they didn't do what we need them to do. So we switched the communication and they did what we want them to do. And then it was the first step to go into producing video, because we can't gather all employees every now and then. So the next big thing to the physical event is to produce videos. So we began. We invested some thing. We did some annual talk shows with big production companies and hostess known from Danish broadcasting television. And we even went as far as producing our own movie. We teamed up with Nikolai Arcel, which back then was a young director and now is one of the most famous director in Denmark and international. And we had Slatko Buric, which was a cult actor back then, but now also is an international star. And we did the movie Max Performer, where Slatko played a Russian agent who infiltrated the bank to find out what's the secret behind our success. And the secret behind this was our value and our culture. Yeah, it was totally crazy, but it was great. It was expensive. To dealing with big production companies, TV production companies or film production companies, it's extremely expensive. So we thought we should fulfill our dream of being a video first company. We need to have another strategy. So we looked at ourselves and we thought, we have these people. We are not going to get any more money from our CEO. So we closed all our print magazines. We educated the people in the communication team and we transformed it into a brand newsroom, a video production unit. So we could produce as many videos as we have the time to do. And that was a big shift. Yeah, I'd like you to show the team from back then. You can see it's not traditional communications people from a bank. Let there be light, a wise person once said. We liked that idea so much that we borrowed it and turned it into a communication strategy. We're not an ordinary communications team. No press managers here. No spin doctors or spokespersons. We are storytellers. We're reporters, a media company within a company. Our mission is to produce journalism, critical, enlightening and inspiring. So yeah, let there be light. This year we produced over 900 TV stories. Stories that help our private customers better understand their homes, their cars, and just about everything else that matters in life. To get closer to our business customers, we hit the shop floors and the stalls and the streets to bring their stories to the world and create value through a banking relationship much out of the ordinary. We've also developed new ways of thinking about corporate communication. Through our media partnership concept, we team up with professional sports clubs, becoming part of the experience. This activates our sponsorship in unique ways. Feeds our social media and differentiates our brand. Long after the final goal has been scored. We do the same at music festivals, CEO conferences, even charity events. We've even done it from the U.S. ambassador's backyard. My first client was Barack Obama, which was, you know, we saw how that one went. So that was actually quite, quite important. So we started to, to act and be a media company, choosing stories from, with an outside in perspective. What are our customers interested in? What are our employees interested in? And then we produced nearly a thousand videos a year. Yeah. Being our own company and trying not to rely on the traditional medias. We communicated directly. The first thing we started in 2006, we launched our internal TV station in 2008, October the 1st. We launched the external TV station and that was two weeks after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. So it was, it was hard time. But the internal communication was a very, very big, big part of this project. And again, because of our CEO, Anastas, when he became CEO, he said it was like, and he moved into a corner office. It was like moving into a bubble. He didn't any, any longer hear all the gossip, all the small talk, all the rumors. He lost contact with the organization. So he challenged us to help him keep in touch with the organization all around the country. So we built an internet called JB United. And on the internet, there was a debate forum. So we built a culture where every employee was expected to raise the hand and start a post. If there was something in the bank that wasn't working very well, or was off strategy, or not followed our core values, and what we did at communication, we backed it with an internal TV magazine once a month, where we had this letter of freedom from our CEO. So we are allowed to do critical, constructive journalism, like in out in the real world about the stories in the bank. And it had a great impact on our employees. They just loved to watch it. It wasn't top-down corporate bullshit. It was, it was really, really journalists about really topics that they were interested in. The first years, it was called Insight. And lately we transformed it into a magazine called Pulse. And we did a little change that there was the editorial team within communication, but we added on an editorial team of employees from all around the organization. So we had this extra editorial team with 20 colleagues who gave us inspiration. What ideas should we cover? And gave us feedback. And it's a little bit how Pulse looked like, and it's in Danish, but I hope you get the picture. So that's once a month, 10 to 15 minutes of covering all the stories within the bank. Then one day, and I can't remember who it was, but saw of rewatch, Good Morning Vietnam. And we got inspired by Robin Williams, who is this radio host, and who is keeping up the spirit among the soldiers at the Vietnam War and sharing information. And every morning, it's a boost to the army. And we thought, can we do the same within a bank? Could we do five, 10 minutes every morning just to give a smile and share some information and do it in a costly way? So I hired Gitte Bastian. She was, now she's on national TV, but back then she was a talented host and she's extremely likable. So we built a studio, a one-man band studio where she with an iPad, and that was pretty new back then, her own producer. And there was a green screen behind her and a camera in the top. So whatever she put on the desk was shown behind her. So she could, as a one-woman band, do this five, 10 minutes every morning. She meant, but in early, so when the colleagues started the working PCs in the morning and had a cup of coffee, they could get an update about how is the situation within the bank. And it looks like this. It's Friday. ¶¶ It was extremely popular among our colleagues and we went on for two or three years and then there was a big broadcaster who stole Gitte Bastian and yeah we had to move on to another format. Of course we also used a lot of energy to make Anastam, to make our CEO shine and I can't think of any better way than video to make your CEO shine. If you do a letter you can't see if it goes right, you can't see his feeling but when you put him up on the big screen every employees around the country can see how he's feeling. Is he mad? Is he happy? Is he anxious? So yeah so we've done a lot of things with Anastam. A few examples. A walk in the woods. Jyske Bank CEO Anastam built his cabin in these woods. His family has walked him for over a hundred years and each year he invites all of Jyske Bank's 4,000 employees for an open-hearted walk here too. Whether it's in the woods, in his office, at public appearances or company celebrations, Jyske Bank's internal TV station helps Anders orchestrate and share and inspire his most important audience through the good times and through the bad times too. And if you needed any further proof that this is not a typical lesson in CEO leadership, consider this. How many companies do you know that even have their own CEO impersonator? Yeah I will highlight one thing we did on the external platform which worked very well for us and which is pretty easy for some of you to copy and that's our media partnership strategy. Instead of just doing traditional partnerships or sponsorship where you come with money and you get your name on a banner on whatever you get, we teamed up with sports clubs, with festivals, with conferences where we came with our skills to produce video. So we didn't give them any money but we gave them our production capacity. And it worked great for us because yeah of course it's for free, we like that. But we also did get a lot better thing out of the partnership, the sponsorship than the other companies we were competing with. This one is a small example from my hometown Aarhus where we have this city festival Aarhus Festu and we were partnered with them for three or four years and one year we thought it could be a good idea. One of the shops at Mainstream were empty. So we borrowed it for a month and we built a walk-in TV studios with talks, with webinars, with music, with beer all the week. So instead of just being a sponsor we became a part of the festival of Aarhus Festu. Another one and it's my favorite was that we for three years were a media partner, had a media partnership with Smokefest, one of Denmark's lastest music festivals. Where we kind of coped very well with their strategy to do things in a different way. So we built, we got a stage in the center of the festival where we every day produced two live shows, 15 minutes called the Daily Show. And then the people on the festival could see it live. They could of course see it on the internet and they could see it in the breaks between the big concerts. Our broadcast was showed at the big screens. And yeah, it was so fun and so crazy and I hope you, yeah, you get a picture of how far we went with this project. I will be there with you. I will be there with you. I will be there with you. We are here! So I think it would be good if I could get it done with a tree. Hello? Hello! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! We're going to the mailbox with Wunderhits. I hope you had a beautiful festival. See you! I think the best year we had was in 2017, where we were awarded the best communication team in Europe by Digital Communications Awards in Berlin. And I find this one minute cavalcade of what we did produce in 2017, and I hope it will give you a good picture of where we were when we were best. We will probably have to explore whether it also holds in the real world. Monday this week is about a sketch, a difficult number called CEOfuck. Donald Trump and his Twitter profile. Fake news! There is a good structure around the business angels environment. It's a completely extraordinary feeling. What happens when you throw away your work clothes forever? EY's entrepreneurs for 2017. It's an extreme product. There are only three in the world that do it. No! In a way, it has done well. That's why I think some people throw politics up in between. Hey, good party! I think it's fantastic. Beautiful. I got to go out and it was absolutely fantastic. Fairytale about Goldilocks and the three bears. It's a serious group. So, and then just one more thing I'd like to mention was the pandemic, because it was a terrible time, but for an online in-house TV station, it was kind of paradise. Everybody was sitting at home and they just needed us. So we did a lot for our employees and for our customers. But it was also a difficult time to produce television because you have to keep the distance. So just a few bloopers to wrap this up. Sorry. Sorry. Take it together, Mikkel. I'll be back soon. Fuck it. I got a long hair. You have to live with that. It's pure oasis here. I'll just use two seconds to figure out what I'm supposed to say. Well, we'd rather get it. Get it shot. Yeah, it was a tough time. Yes, it was crazy times. And just three small takeaways. If you want to go the way we did, you need the big yes from the CEO. Otherwise, you'll run into a KPI wall within a month or two. You need to be brave and not be afraid to take some big chances. And then you need to have fun. And we for sure had a lot of fun. So thank you for your attention. Thank you so much, Lasse. Yes, I think there are some questions in the audience. Perfect. My question is that I'm starting a startup right now and I've done content creation for a while. And I thought that this is a new trend of kind of founder-led stories on social media, on Instagram and so on. But as I can now see, this is an old product. This is a new project that has been put from television basically onto social media. So my question is, from your experience now building this personal brand around your CEO, what would be the biggest lesson that you've learned and that I can implement in my own journey now when I want to make founder-led content on my social media platform that I can implement in my content so that I can have success presenting myself in such a way that I can achieve my goals of growing my social media platform while being professional and then also making people interested in my company and the thing that I'm building so that they then will follow me and hopefully maybe buy my product in the future or just come along for the journey to see what I'm doing. Yeah. Yes, it's true. It's a lot of it back in the days and we'll probably do it completely different today on TikTok or Instagram. You need the space to be creative. You need to be allowed to make a lot of false, a lot of mistakes and that agreement did we have with our CEO. We tried this and then it was not a success and then we just closed it down and tried some new. So a lot of taking chances and learn from the failures and then find out who are you competing with. Back then, our competitors was broadcast television. We kind of learned from the best but built a smarter production set up so we can do a lot more content for less money and then gave it a twist where they were too glamorous or too lean. We put in some humor and stuff and your example, I guess, find some good figures to be inspired by and then give it your personal touch and then give the space to be brave and have fun. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you a lot. It was extremely inspiring and just so happy to see that it's possible to have fun in corporate world because we always feel that when you're talking with clients, they kind of afraid to be beyond just the stereotypical image. And then, of course, you had probably a green card from the beginning but maybe you can just tell us what kind of benefits can be for the company so we can tell, you know, USK Bank said, if you do this, it will be like that. Yeah. I know for sure it was 20, 25 years where we were in some kind of communication heaven and our CEO had this slogan, we need to have fun to make money but we also need to make money to allow us to have fun. So that was kind of the circle and in most companies, it's just we have to make money. So if it's in a big company, you need to find a company that wants to be a different kind of company, wants to be standing out from the competitors and then you need a CMO or CEO with some partner friends, big balls to take some chances. Thank you. I think my question is a bit related to the previous one but it's very clear from your presentation the benefits of all your activities internally and I was curious to know what was the perception outside the company from competitors and customers? Was there even maybe some jealousy from other banks, for example? Yeah. In the beginning, people thought we were crazy and the media world wanted us to close down because they said we were cheating. We were not allowed to do external journalism when we were a bank. Many other companies envy us because we had the CEO and he wanted to put not that much money but they got to go one way and only do video. But nowadays, I see one of our big competitors, Danske Bank, just hired three or four people this summer to do internal video and if you check out, a lot of companies are building TV studios right now. So I think there's, there's a second wave of what we started back in 08 and that's, there's a saying, every company is a media company and we used that back in 08 and you see it now. Every prime minister, every sports star, every football club and every company needs the skills to produce video content directly to their employees or to the customers or to the shareholders or to the media world. So, yeah. Yeah. At some point, you mentioned a KPI war and I was wondering if you could expand on that and tell us what some of the KPIs were or if you were particularly fighting against this idea that everything needs a KPI. Yeah. What I meant with the KPI war, you need to have a long perspective. If you have a square-headed CMO who wants to measure you within a month, it's impossible. You need to build something up. Otherwise, it's, you can't measure it. In the beginning, the first many years, it was a part of the bank's differentiation strategy. So we want to do everything in a different way than other banks and other companies. So, so that was kind of the KPI. Of course, we want a lot of viewers and we want a lot of, a lot of reach. But, but it was also good enough for us that, that it was a part of this differentiation strategy. Later on, we moved on to, and I didn't bring it, but moved on to do webinars started under the pandemic. And we have, the bank have two big webinars, one for house owners and one for investors. And, and that's the first time as a marketeer or communication man that I could say, this is worth the money. All your views, reach, branding, whatever. But, but, but when you do webinars, you have to sign on and we, we delivered more leads to our business unit than, than they could have. So, so it was fun for 35 years at last doing something that's, that was proven right. If I was now to be hired as the marketing manager for a Jyske Bank now, and my job would be to present the CEO now, not on television, but on social media, right? What would be one of the biggest mistakes or learnings that you have made in your career that you would recommend me not to do again so that I can jump over that bridge and don't have to fall in the water? It challenged the mindset. I saw at another conference, some young guys like you doing, to build a TikTok company and, and, and, and convince the company because many companies, it's, it's led by old men and they don't understand the algorithms or the logic, how you should produce perfect content for, for TikTok, for example, or Instagram. So, so again, be brave and, and come with, with some perspective and, and some results showing that if you, instead of what, what we did was basically traditional television, but, but that, that doesn't work on, on TikTok or Instagram. You have to, you have to tell your stories in, in, in another order and, and, and show, show how you can do that. And probably if you have some numbers, show them this. Connection to that, right? Maybe you've seen Ryan or Duolingo pop up on Instagram a lot because they do a lot of like this comical, fun content and they hop off all of these trends, right? They present their mascot basically as the, as a logo, the thing that they're presenting in every video. So it's more user-friendly. Would you do the same or would you try to still push the CEO if it was you? That's a good question. I think if, if, if, if I was going in a, in a, in a job as a head of communication and start to build a media mindset, I would probably go in a completely different direction and, and really test things. I saw a case from the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity yesterday from Corona Beer, who want to be a part of the music scene. And they have made one second videos with, with music numbers. So you, you should get the number within one second. And they, they got a lot of intention and a lot of engagement. And, and the smart part was when you only play one second of a song, there's no royalties. So, so find your loopholes and, and, and be creative. Thank you for your presentation. It was again, very inspiring. I have a question regarding your team. The team you showed at the beginning of the presentation, was that people who were already employed in Jyske Bang or did you create the team from, hiring external people? You mentioned you hired the journalist, but before that, how did you create the team? Yeah, we had this content marketing team, but they were all, they were all written journalists. So we have to, to educate the written journalists to be a video journalist. And then, then we hired the photographers and producers and so on. I guess that's it. Thank you.