This week on Insightful Inspiration, host Isabelle Landreville is joined by John Rocco, Chief Brand Officer at Scotiabank, one of Canada’s Big Five banks.
With over three decades of brand-building across retail, insurance, and financial services — from Loblaw to Target to Sonett and now Scotiabank — John has led some of the most defining brand moments in Canadian marketing history.
He's a storyteller at heart, and someone who has spent his career proving that the best brand decisions are grounded in deep human understanding. This conversation centers on what marketers are not only adapting to, but building towards — and how insights partners can help them set a new paradigm for marketing leadership. Together, John and Isabelle explore:
• How marketers’ core skills and responsibilities have changed — and stayed the same
• The role of insights in marketers’ work today: what marketers need from insights leaders, how that has changed, and what quality looks like
• Where trust matters most in the insights process, and how to earn it
That last is key for all brands, but especially brands like Scotiabank. When your customers’ earnings, savings, and investments are the business, the chain of trust runs all the way from the customer to the CEO. This episode is about keeping it strong for years to come.
The following transcript has been condensed and edited for clarity.
The consumer truth that launched Sonnet
Isabelle: So let's go back in time, just a tad. Sonnet is still being talked about as the largest brand launch in Canada's recent history. What do you attribute that success to, and what role did insights play in that?
John: That was probably a good ten years ago now. I joined the company as marketing employee number two, and we were in the process of building out Canada's first real end-to-end direct-to-consumer insurance offering. We wanted it to be different. We did deep consumer insights before we launched, and what we found was that people really were confused — not even confused, even apathetic — about their insurance. It was: I know I need it, I know I have to buy it, but I don't really know what I'm covered for. So in that moment of truth, when something happens, you hold your breath and say, I hope I'm okay. You had policy wordings that were dozens of pages long. People weren't sure about what kind of liability they needed or what they needed covered.
When we looked at what was motivating purchase decisions, all of the competition was focused on the rational components. But there was such an emotional connection. And the third thing was that the industry itself was grounded on fear — the tree crashing through the house, the accident, the lightning strike. So we said: if all of these things are about protecting what you really care about, why are we juxtaposing that with fear? Why can't we talk about optimism?
Our first TV spot was an ode to a tree. It said, somewhere in the voiceover: most insurance companies want you to think of this as a big, bad tree that's going to fall on your house. We want you to see it for what it is — a place to hang a swing, a place to have a picnic under. You don't worry about it falling. We'll worry about that. And we actually filmed a spot, had real pyrotechnics, built a thumb rocket — because it was important that it felt real. Michael J. Fox narrated all the spots in that first year, because he is optimism personified. The line was: we believe it's even possible to love your insurance company.
How to spot an insight that is powerful enough to act on
Isabelle: When did you know these were the insights worth acting on?
John: For that one, it was really obvious. I wasn't an insurance person — I'd been a retail marketer my whole career. And when you're in retail, your product is developed based on what the consumer wants. So to me it was sort of obvious. All of this research was telling you: they don't particularly care for you. They're having a really difficult time understanding you. And when the rubber hits the road, they're not sure you're going to be there for them.
And it's no different from what we do today at Scotia. We really look for what is at the heart of what the customer is feeling. In our last campaign, You Make More Than You Think, we looked at what people were posting on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok. People are living their lives through the lens of other people's perceived happiness. So we took it away from the financial institution and said: what do you make? You make friends, you make jokes, you're a shoulder to cry on, you make a mean grilled cheese. All of those things are real everyday moments where people can be seen.
When an insight tells us how we can be a lens to the consumer — how we can play back to them what they're feeling so they are seen — that becomes really powerful. Because then you can build a story that authentically shows them that you understand them.
We did a campaign called First Day, for new Canadians. All of the competition was offering a credit card, a loan, $800 in credit. Those are table stakes. So we featured someone who had been new to Canada fifteen years ago. The whole script was around him reminiscing about his first day, and what advice he would give himself: be kind to yourself, be patient with yourself. And yes, find a banker who is going to understand you. We received comments from people who weren't new to Canada at all saying, wow, I really feel seen.
It is really tempting as a marketer — with pressure from the business to sell product and sign up consumers — to jam in a bunch of messaging. But if you can establish a deep emotional connection, you're going to be way better off with that consumer over the long run than in any one individual quarter. So it takes patience, and it takes trust from the organization to do that.
What a good insights partner gives marketers
Isabelle: Is there something that's part of the brief today that is very useful to you — that might not have been there five or ten years ago? Have your needs from an insights partner evolved?
John: I think it has evolved from being tactical and functional — is this good or is it not good — to: help me understand the consumer deeper. There is a much more nuanced, deeper understanding of the consumer in what we look at today than maybe fifteen years ago.
Isabelle: When you say help me understand them deeper, what does that mean for you?
John: It is really allowing that empathy — put myself in their shoes. I am not a new Canadian. Help me understand what a consumer will feel when they make that move, when they land in another country and have to start their life. I need that deeper understanding. Only deep insights are going to give me what a consumer will feel in that moment.
And even in the creative nuances — we had one scene in You Have More Than You Think where a child bursts in and the mother is sitting on the toilet, and brings in a picture. I remember sitting there, doubting myself. I'm like, I don't know if this is right for a bank. And my wife said: if you take that scene out, we have a problem. Because that is life. I've had our boys kick down that door so many times, and now they're gone. And I have that memory. If you take that away, then you're not telling stories anymore.
Isabelle: It's the authenticity behind it.
John: We build lives. As families, we build lives, and we build them in different ways. Understanding what's important to people as they build their lives gives us permission to talk to them about what we do.
