Pepper Money Brand Campaign

The sector itself is dominated by product-first, rational messaging, leaving little to differentiate brands. Yet Pepper’s broker promise of ‘Ambitions, fulfilled’ demanded more than logic alone. Our brief was clear: to develop a brand campaign that broke the mould and deepened Pepper’s emotional connection with brokers.

It was a bold but deliberate pivot. Rather than compete on rate in a race to the bottom, Pepper chose to reassert its relevance in a different way to the rest – by putting people, not products, at the heart of its story.

The creative idea
And so, Be More You was born – an idea that strikes an emotional chord by focusing on our audience’s ‘real them’, with their own priorities, wants and needs.
Through its flexible ‘more’ mechanic, the campaign shifts its focus from being more productive and confident at work, to more balanced and healthy away from it – delivering the professional and personal empathy brokers crave. And positioning Pepper as the means of them living their best lives again. This sentiment is powerfully backed up through an array of visual techniques, each dramatising people’s ‘real them’ emerging from the chaos of their daily existence.

Channels and activation
Be More You is executed in all the expected paid channels. But as a sector-defying campaign, its reach stretches well beyond – as far as Spotify playlists and physical gamification at mortgage exhibitions (think Crystal Maze).

It also includes a game-changing industry first – in the form of holistic wellbeing events known as ‘Retreats’. Going above and beyond anything brokers have experienced before, these focus on raising the physical and mental wellbeing of brokers, through group exercise, talks, nutrition and more. It’s a campaign that whispers, rather than shouts. But it makes its presence felt in a lot of places, and in a lot of different ways.

BVA BDRC ‘Project Mercury’
(Independent tracker of lenders’ marketing effectiveness and brand standing amongst UK mortgage brokers.)

Pepper has moved to:
#1 for Unprompted Willingness to Recommend (adverse lenders)
#1 for Unprompted Willingness to Recommend (specialist lenders)
#1 for Brand Image (specialist lenders)
#1 for Marketing Recall (specialist lenders)

Pegasus Insight ‘Connexion’
(Independent assessment of specialist lender brand perceptions, salience and resonance amongst UK mortgage brokers.)

Inaugural Q4 2024 research ranked Pepper as:
#1 for Unprompted Advertising Recall
#1 for Unprompted Event Recall
‘Personal Favourite’ specialist lender amongst brokers

Retreat
These events have had an extraordinary impact. LinkedIn activity surrounding them has generated more than 70,000 impressions, over 1,600 reactions and above 200 comments. This represents an astonishing 19.7% engagement rate against a 2.5% industry average.
While a press reach of over 221,700 across industry publications has played a huge role in making broker wellbeing a major industry conversation.

Beyond all this, Be More You has been shortlisted at the Marketing Week Awards, Independent Agency Awards and Financial Promoter Awards. A pretty decent haul, all in all. And with the campaign showing no signs of slowing down, the posh frocks and tuxes will hopefully need dusting off again soon.