What Shipped: Issue 5, 2021

Future Super is a superannuation fund that helps people use the power of their money to build a future worth retiring into. We’re building our product and brand in-house and documenting what we learn in the process.

Here’s what we’ve been up to in the past few weeks:

1. Socials
   Melissa had the new starter jitters but is already well into finding her (our?) voice.
2. Copywriting
   Jake is going back to school to polish up his storytelling skills.
3. Brand
   Amanda is ready to commit to one brand idea (and some external help to get us there).
4. Product
   Danny and Richard have found their front-end rhythm for designing and building in tandem.

Social Social Social

New Starter Jitters.

First newly fresh corporate role. First time in financial services. First time Medium article writer; wow.

Where is Mariela? I’m not exactly sure, but as their successor, I’ll be spearheading our organic social accounts, producing content, sharing ideas, and having conversations with people on ground zero; our community.

These past (nearly 3) weeks have been a steady but wonderful whirlwind of a journey starting at Future Super as the shiny new Social Media Producer, and goodness, have I learnt a lot (more on this below).

As a creative team, we are constantly thinking and executing on ideas and concepts. We do this by taking time to rapidly flesh out ideas from all points in our team, and business. Everyone’s thoughts are heard, acknowledged, and respected.

So, what have I learnt?

1. We are a business harnessing the power of money to create a world worth retiring into.
2. We do this by showing people what their money can do, literally.
3. We don’t beat around the bush with pixels and production; we are clear — a distinct voice in a sea of murky policies, fuzzy terminology, and knotty information.
4. We say more with less.
5. Support and regular communication is imperative for any team, and I have been showered with this, so kudos to our team for being consistent, empathetic, and so incredibly kind.
6. We may not be for everyone, and that’s okay. The important aspect here is to inform and listen to people who align with our values, purpose, mission, and vision. We don’t need to please everyone and anyone.

How does social play into this?

Our team is working in-house (if you haven’t heard already) building our branding, fleshing out our guardrails, and refining our voice.

For socials, I have been prompted to think about a few things when it comes to our Social Media Strategy and channels;

a) What is social media’s role when it comes to important movements?

b) What do we want to say?

c) What do we want people who follow us to say/ do?

d) What would success look like, and where else do we see this?

And in response, I have been thinking about the following;

a) As a superannuation business focussed on harnessing the power of money to build a better future, my role in Social Media is to share this with people and build a community of crusaders who join us on this journey in switching their super funds.

Why?

Because this gives people autonomy over their money, their ability to choose and truly see where their money is being spent and invested in. With the power of this money, and lots of it, our members can, by proxy, vote, and make impactful changes in the businesses they invest in. So if, hypothetically, Honda decides to start furloughing off their staff, mistreating them, or their supply chain, we can be there to place a vote and make these businesses hear us.

Through data, we know it will take only 7.7% of Australia’s superannuation to finance a transition to 100% renewable electricity in Australia by 2030. Thus by sharing what we know, we can help people see the change they want.

How?

Experimenting with content that brings value to our members and followers. I’m thinking infographics on infographics, engagement tools, such as IGTVs, regular Instagram Live streams to talk to people, instantly.

Exploring emerging social media platforms using the power of voices. This can be instrumental in communicating directly to our members, followers, and the general public passionate about climate change and inequality.

Creating content that aligns with our values, is consistent, truthful, thought provoking, and gives people something with substance to talk about.

Taking action and stepping back when we need to do the work, as well as taking action through physical marches, rallies, and conversations outside the social sphere as well as within it.

Being brave in our content production and diving into newer platforms — cue the TikTok dances.

Underproduction is better than no production; get things out and raise our voice.

What else?

We want people to take control over their money, and give them agency to keep us, and other businesses accountable.

We want to inform people about the screening processes we are making, to give them greater insight into where their money is going.

We want to raise awareness about causes, people, and communities we, and our members, are passionate about.

b) Thinking and being mindful about our content is important, but doing is just as important as well.

We want to be able to use social media as a tool to bring people together, collectively, to create a large ground-shaking, global impact.

It’s not always about us, but about the people around us, our community, our environment, the people who make up the fabric of this land we reside, work, and rest on.

(Almost) everyone has the ability to leverage the power of money in uncovering shady business practices that contribute to the degradation of our people and planet.

There is so much to be said, and not a lot has been done from trusted people we have put our faith and money into, so we’re taking the reins and giving people an opportunity to share their voice around climate change.

Fossil fuels are a no go, and you may be investing in it now.

c) We want our followers and members to feel empowered in knowing they have contributed to the movement in tackling the climate crisis.

We want them to be active and follow through on their passions beyond just sharing the word, we want them to be curious, going out and taking action, keeping others informed, keeping brands accountable, and be keen in asking lots of questions.

We encourage members’ to be vocal about us and truly align with our vision, we don’t want to push them into joining for the sake of joining.

d) Success looks like constant communication with our members’ and followers, a genuine sense of curiosity from people.

We really like what Nike are doing on their socials in raising voices, not talking about product, but people instead.

Apple has consistently pushed the boundaries when it comes to creativity and production, and their approach on social media follows through on this as well; from creative drawings, influencers, artists, to everyday people. They’re in the business of telling stories through the lens of people and the world around them.

The Futur are another great example of their ability to share meaningful content, they say a lot with very little on their socials, but go more in depth, more than they really need to via long-form content on YouTube.

A little biased, but Jameela Jamil is a powerhouse of a woman shattering stereotypes and the patriarchy. She is instrumental in bringing together droves of people and fighting for radical inclusivity. She experiments with a range of content, more notably her social channel iWeigh and her podcast.

From more of an overall marketing presence, Spotify do a really great job in successfully engaging people and looking at their brand from multiple angles with out-of-the-box thinking and statistics;

More to come, so keep your eyes, ears, and maybe… noses peeled and ready for more social experimentation.

I’m out for now, and funnily enough, so are the jitters.

— Melissa

Copywriting

I went back to school.

Sometimes to do the best work for your team, you have to do something for you.

I have to admit my appetite for learning waned over last year. Something about trying to get going at my new job during a pandemic just didn’t leave me with a whole lot more to give.

But I’m hungry again.

Recently, the self-work I’ve been doing to become a better copywriter has leaned heavily on a commitment to read more (it’s working!) and a commitment to rediscover all the things I love about writing (it’s in progress).

So, I’ve gone back to school. I wanted to revisit what it means to build strong, emotive, stories as a writer. I started at a place that appreciates good stories more than most: D&AD.

Design and Art Direction is a UK-based organisation that’s like the Oscars for the advertising world. Except instead of a gold statue you get a pencil, and instead of worldwide fame you get industry recognition. It’s more exciting than you’d think. This is the kind of work that literally changes the world (see The Tampon Book).

I’ve been taking a storytelling short course to improve my writing skills. I have to say it’s been refreshing, and given me an opportunity to identify weak points in my writing. I thought I’d offer up three reflections I have so far:

1. A controlling idea needs to be held onto tightly. I found that as I wrote, my controlling idea changed. But the ‘why’ of my story should never change. If the story I’m telling needs to be told for a reason, that reason should guide everything.
2. As I’ve started breaking down narrative arcs, I found that laying the foundation of ‘why’ something was important was missing. I think this is a symptom of the direction our brand has been heading; a little too shouty, without enough confidence in what we’re saying. The challenge is writing exposition that makes people care without being boring.
3. I was trying to immediately apply all my course learnings to my work at Future Super. It wasn’t helpful. I then backtracked so that I could approach the process of learning without having to apply everything straight away. When you don’t know what you don’t know, it can be counterproductive to start working with half the tools you need. A healthier and more beneficial attitude is to try to improve my understanding of the craft overall and worry about how I use those new skills later.

— Jake

Brand commitment issues

It’s time to put a ring on it.

Commitment issues are something I thought would remain firmly in my dating life, but alas, it’s time to tackle them head on in my work life too! Jokes. In creative work we talk a lot about play, but discipline and commitment are kind of un-sexy topics.

But. Great brands are built over long periods of time with a lot of discipline. Nike can only be Nike (and flex as much as they do) because they’ve built strong equity into their swoosh.

Last year: playing the field

Over the last year, we’ve done most of our brand development and exploration in-house (and remote!). That’s enabled us to:

• Define our positioning, messages, and brand strategy
• Understand the surfaces and applications we need our identity to live on
• Try (and ship) lots of variations on verbal and visual identity
• Build a shared sense of meaning amongst the team
• Feel out what our needs are (for example, we lean heavily on language — writers and writing are important to us)

Early on, we wanted the flexibility to try things. But an abundance of flexibility comes with a set of limitations. What we don’t have:

• Clear guidelines
• Enough flex to move into the various platforms we’re trialling
• A singular idea or rationale guiding the visual and verbal decisions we make
• Shared understanding of when we flex our identity and how far we go

That raises questions like: When do we use colour? When do we “shout”? When do we get serious? Do we use innuendo? Why or why not? Where might a freelancer or new starter in the creative team find this information? Where do we flex and where do we stick to our core?

The impact of not committing

Without a consistent, coherent identity, we scattered equity into different distinctive assets. In the short term that’s fine; conversion is conversion. But over time, we’re not building one brand. We’re missing an opportunity to build our brand in people’s minds, and missing an opportunity to strengthen that connection, that would in-turn make our communications work harder over time.

Distinctive assets and brand idea as distinctive asset

For a piece of communications to work, people must be able to identify the brand being advertised. Brand identity elements signal the brand name to customers. Another word for them: distinctive assets. That might be things like:

• Colour (Economist red, Virgin, etc)
• Slogans/taglines
• Music or jingles (buh-buh-buh-buh-buh…I’m loving it)
• Style of advertising (I think Nike film)
• Logos or shapes (Golden arches)
• Characters/mascots

Changing things is fun but, if you’re always changing these things, you’re making your job harder on yourself. That’s not fun. Striking the balance between consistency and flexibility is the trick — and it’s not easy.

Brands can (and have been) be built without core distinctive assets (Lorenzo Bresciani notes here — Volkswagen Golf, Nike, or John Lewis’s TV ads on the true spirit of Christmas are good examples) but what they do require is a deep consistency in other elements. For Volkswagen Golf: tone of voice and a smart, intelligent representation of human truths.

Distinctive assets should serve the brand idea. In some instances, the brand idea is the distinctive asset. I have a hunch that’s probably where Future Super sits, but we’ve tested a lot of visual and verbal styles. It’s time to put a stake in the ground and start building equity into one system. We need a little help in order to do that.

This year: How we’re going to put a ring on it

The practice of building new brand identity systems day in, day out is different to specialising in the applications, messages, and needs of an audience client-side. We’ve got the latter, so we’re looking for a creative director or studio to work with us to get this over the finish line.

Here’s what’s next:

• We’re speaking with a few pinch hitters and agencies who can help us corral the massive amount of exploration we’ve done. We’re looking for a partner team or coach: someone who can support our team, vs work solo.
• With the partner we choose: build visual and verbal identity with a few tools for the team to use to make decisions
• Codify those into guidelines and start using it with freelancers
• Practice discipline, commitment, and build 👏 that 👏 equity👏.

Should we throw ourselves a brand wedding? I think so. Commitment’s a beautiful thing.

— Amanda

Designing and developing and back again

We’ve set a good rhythm for in-tandem front-end design and development.

We’re in the midst of an online account overhaul, from white-label “does it all for everyone” to bespoke “does it right for Future Super”. Like we did for our new-ish Join form, our designers (myself) and developers (Richard) are working in tandem.

Designers and developers ‘working in tandem’ is a process a lot of folks preach yet not many practice. With looming deadlines and good-enough habits entrenched, efforts often fall apart. Here are some of our unique rituals that helped us take it from preach to practice.

We work on the same thing at (roughly) the same time

Richard and I are both invested in getting the same feature done. That means we’re more inclined to stop what we’re doing to help each other out, as one person’s blockers are blocking our shared ability to get it finished.

We have the same end destination in mind

A premade mid-fidelity, clickable, thoroughly-tested, prototype sits off to the side as our compass. I say ‘compass’ and not ‘source of truth’ because things inevitably change as we climb the hill of unknowns to knowns. As things change and the product itself becomes the ‘source of truth’, the Figma prototype can be left to wilt as it should.

Our roles are clear

We’re still working on this one. For example, both Richard and I realised we built out the menu navigation at the same time. Another example: I built out a checkbox component but broke logic that enabled a ‘Continue’ button when the checkbox was checked. We’re getting there though, and knowing who does what means we can work quicker with less clean-up after each other.

Our branching and merging is clear

Richard, as the back-of-the-front-end person responsible for delivering the functioning web app, owns the branch that is considered the main development branch. I make pull requests against his branches often, with warning, and with a lot of commentary. His ‘functional’ branches inherit the work in my ‘stylistic’ branches multiple times a week.

Oh, and we only have about two days of overlap a week. Everything else is asynchronous. Here are some customs and tools that help us maintain the above:

• Loom video recordings for quick walkthroughs when a Slack message would feel like an essay
• Slack messages for quick catch-me-ups
• In-code comments
• Pull request comments

— Danny