St. James’s Place (SJP) is committed to being a leading responsible business, embedding responsible and sustainable decision making in all we do. We work in partnership to plan, grow and protect our clients’ financial futures.
Our aspiration is to be a force for good both socially and environmentally, through our advice and business operations, including marketing.
This Responsible Marketing Policy has been produced to reflect and reinforce all our marketing activity, ensuring we hold ourselves accountable to the highest standards of responsibility, in line with the expectations of our community, which includes clients, employees, Partners, shareholders, and society.
Core Principles
All marketing activity is planned, produced, and delivered in lockstep with SJP’s core values:
- Doing the right thing. This includes valuing, respecting, and caring about people, striving to put things right if we make mistakes, and giving back.
- Investing in long-term relationships. Which means creating success together, helping each other develop and grow, and being easy to do business with.
- Being the best version of ourselves. So we are brave and bold, embrace diversity, and achieve and celebrate excellence.
In addition, all marketing activity follows Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) high-level general principles, with a steadfast commitment to:
- Act with integrity, due skill, care, and diligence.
- Pay due regard to the interests of clients and to treat them fairly.
- Pay due regard to the information needs of our clients and communicate information to them in a way in which is clear, fair, and not misleading.
Through our brand, we take this further, placing financial wellbeing and future financial confidence at the centre of our purpose. Powered by this purpose, activity is scoped, defined, and created with the client in mind. And we know our clients well, working from personas (known as the SJP Family Tree), built and regularly updated via proprietary and external data and insight.
Recently, we’ve refreshed the way we look and sound. This change is designed to reflect us and our community. It's about making sure we take the best of the last 30 years of SJP and evolve to create the next 30 years. It's also about being accessible, authentic, and personal, while being attractive to future generations.
We strive to make our communications simple and empathetic, so we promise an easy and personal experience, enhancing consumer understanding. Our tone of voice ensures we use clear and impactful language that resonates and engages with our community.
SJP imagery, and the language we use, follows UK demographic national averages, supplied by Office of National Statistics Census data. This ensures the appropriate representation of society and our client bank, including age, gender, ethnicity, and disability. Whether through the written or spoken word, photography, or illustration – all our content is intended to be true-to-life, impactful, and reflect the humanity that our company, and its people, represent.
Scope
At a strategic level, all marketing activity is driven by a ‘centre of excellence’ approach, to create a best-in-class & highly respected marketing department, driving SJP to be the number one trusted face-to-face financial advice business, with high client satisfaction and employee engagement scores.
The Marketing team at SJP helps our Partner businesses attract and retain clients, and deliver a leading client-centric experience through corporate marketing of the SJP brand and reputation.
By working directly with Partners, the team helps them with their marketing activities and communications, such as brochures, advertising, websites, and social media, as well as supporting on corporate marketing initiatives, such as retirement planning, responsible investing, and tax year-end.
An internal capability is responsible for ensuring all the marketing tools and resources are delivered in the most efficient and effective way into the Partnership. There’s a marketing helpdesk and a field-based team of marketing consultants for more hands-on support.
A marketing services function is responsible for the SJP corporate brand, platforms and systems, as well as several specialist focus areas that provide assets and resources to assist Partners. These include digital marketing, propositions, insight and campaigns, content, social media, and client events. This combined capability delivers increased share of voice in the market, and ultimately business growth.
Our experts build and protect our digital reputation and findability in internet search results. The team also develops campaigns and propositions using data and insight to grow awareness and consideration of SJP to engage and attract prospective clients.
This is all underpinned by processes that enable operations to run to time and budget, aligned to the overall corporate marketing plan.
We communicate in a manner most appropriate for the client according to their preferences, however, we encourage a paperless approach where possible. We operate a ‘print on demand’ service to prevent wastage and held stock, using environmentally friendly paper. We continually contract with suppliers to boost their responsibility and vet new suppliers according to these principles.
Strong governance ensures a return on objective focus - on the resource and effort spent. And there is also a sharp focus on people and talent development, ensuring high engagement and performance in the team.
Compliance oversight and approvals
All marketing activity and communications are subject to the financial promotion regime, covering anything that promotes the SJP brand or a Partner business, the products available, or the services offered.
Therefore, all relevant collateral is reviewed and approved considering all the following criteria: what it is and how it’s going to be used, who the audience is going to be, the FCA Rulebooks, Advertising Standards Authority, Consumer Duty, whether and where risk warnings are needed. In addition, marketing specialists review statements of fact made, copyright, language used, spelling and grammar. This robust process is constantly monitored and optimised to ensure the best outcomes for all stakeholders.
In addition, distinct and in-depth guidance exists to help the marketing team and Partner businesses when first starting the development of any type of marketing item. This guidance assists in determining whether approval is needed, who, and how to submit for approval, and help to ensure items are compliant.
Policy Management
This policy is owned by the office of the Chief Client and Reputation Officer and responsibility for compliance sits with the senior leadership team in marketing. The entire SJP marketing team has been briefed on this policy, and it is available to our external partners and agencies who conduct activity on our behalf. The policy is reviewed by specialist resource on a regular basis, and kept up-to-date with SJP’s strategic focusses and regulatory requirements.