Rathbones is a FTSE 250 company with over 1,000 staff, managing more than £30bn of client money in offices across the UK and Channel Islands. Its client magazine, produced twice a year, is a key platform through which it demonstrates the breadth of intellect that feeds into its investment process.
Marketing Director Jason Kearney sets a high standard. “Rathbones Review is incredibly thoughtful. We don’t want me-too content in there that clients can access easily from other places.
“A big part of the Rathbones DNA is our desire to analyse and learn from past events and to look ahead at the big issues that will shape the world to come. We have a lot of bright, thoughtful people here, with broad interests and similarly bright, thoughtful clients. We want a publication that reflects that but that still has a light touch.”
Rathbones Review magazine spreads. Stories covered include the potential of thorium, the rise of China, the perils of protectionism and the future of the sharing economy.
Bulletin was approached for a number of reasons. Its core editorial staff are successful former journalists who have worked nationally and internationally. We specialise in financial services and academia, so we bring an understanding of the investment world and access to ideas emerging from our university clients.
We also have a reputation for high quality design, helped by the fact that the designers and writers work closely together. In many firms, content is written and delivered to a designer who has to do the best they can with it. At Bulletin the designers will often suggest visual ways of communicating complex ideas that influence the way copy is written or edited. The writers can edit work to fit a particularly creative design and suggest pullout quotes, headlines and captions to make a more cohesive publication.
Dynamic layouts emphasise the powerful editorial imagery.
Bulletin is one of the few consultancies of its kind to employ a statistician. She helps the designers to produce imaginative, high-quality infographics that support the editorial.
What we did
Working to Rathbones’ latest brand guidelines, the Bulletin design team overhauled the whole look of the magazine, creating new running headers and footers, establishing a consistent headline hierarchy and coherent structure to the magazine. They introduced more powerful imagery, giving space to the best pictures, and using captions and pullouts to help support the narrative.
Infographic illustrations bring stories to life and add impact.
Our writers are now embedded in the editorial process, contributing ideas and drawing on their experience in the national media to support the piece authors in delivering writing of the highest quality.
Working together with Rathbones’ marketing team, its investment specialists, in-house writers and guest contributors, Bulletin has created a publication that has a powerful effect on clients and also supports the firm’s progressive online content-marketing strategy, bringing extra depth to the Rathbones website and helping to engage a new generation of clients.
Gold standard
Clients have said the quality of the publication makes them more confident in the quality of wealth management service being delivered and many people have praised the variety of content.
One national editor wrote:
“I end up reading literally hundreds of corporate publications but rarely finish one. No such inertia or failure of concentration with the latest Rathbones Review. It was one of the best examples I’ve ever (more than…) perused. A captivatingly relevant read and an exemplar to the many other drier, crustier, opaque and indigestible publications. Gold standard stuff.”
