Financial Services. It’s an interesting area. Shares a lot of traits with B2B advertising, but is aimed at the more general consumer. We sort of borrow tactics from both worlds.

In the beginning, the Barbarian Group didn’t really chase segments or industries for the work we took. We kind of took the work that people needed us for. So through the years, we’ve sort of watched different industries wrestle with the need to increase the sophistication of their online marketing tactics. Industries arrive at this conclusion at different times. Automotive was first. Financial Services wasn’t far behind.

It’s an area we’re interested in, and we want to pursue more. Recently we’ve struck up an ongoing relationship with The Economist, which has re-exposed us to the trends in this industry. We’ve pitched some large financial services agencies as an assistant to larger agencies, and we came up with some really wonderful ideas we’d love to see come to fruition someday (our partner agency didn’t win, sadly).

Of the work we have done, our work with Goodby on the Discover Card stuff was really great. Innovative thinking about branded utilities, incentives, the consumer and their relationship to financial services. We liked it a lot. We miss it. We’re ready for more.