Financial firms heavily invest in events, but without visual ownership, most value is lost. Leaving fragmented content, weak brand recognition, and missed opportunities to build trust.
Events have become a core feature of the financial services calendar. Investor summits, client dinners, and fintech conferences are multiplying, with heavily allocated budgets. And yet, for all this investment, very little of what’s created in those rooms at those events actually delivers long-term brand value. So, what ROI do they create? The reason it’s so hard to answer that question is that nobody owns what comes out of them.
The open accountability gap
Events should deliver connections, contracts, and content. The first two partly come down to what happens on the day, but they’re also intrinsically linked to the third, specifically, the visual output. Visual content directly influences how a brand is perceived. The problem is that in most financial institutions, visual output is both everywhere and owned by no one.
Of course, there are guidelines, but with event content typically being ad hoc, impromptu, and minimal, those guidelines are rarely enforced. Marketing teams produce campaigns focused on promoting the event, rather than maximising its potential. Communications teams are really only about messaging. Events teams focus, understandably, on logistics and experience. And sales teams create their own materials to meet their immediate needs. There’s no cohesive oversight and no branding ownership. In our work covering corporate events for global financial brands, it’s not unusual to find four or five different production vendors hired across territories for a single summit series, each interpreting the brief differently, and none of them owning what the body of work looks like once it’s stitched together. The result is fragmentation, which not only reduces the ROI of events but can erode a brand’s visual identity, and with it, consumer familiarity, recognition, and trust. The brand is seen, but not remembered.
Compliance is a constraint, not an explanation
Ask why financial services marketing looks the way it does, and most people will point to compliance. Strict regulations, risk aversion, and approval layers are all genuine constraints. In finance, organisations have to be careful about what they do and say. But that doesn’t mean visual creativity is off the table. The actual reason most financial firms default to stock photography and tick-the-box headshots, rather than treating either as a real brand asset, is that it’s easier. But that ease comes at the cost of differentiation.
Financial services websites and social pages blur into one. They use the same colour palettes, abstract graphics, and interchangeable imagery of people in suits. The intention is to portray professionalism. But the result is typically bland anonymity. At a glance, nothing distinguishes one firm from its competitors. Events can be the route to something better.
How events can deliver more than a single hit
Finance is one of the most acutely personal concerns. And yet, financial institutions almost inevitably manage to feel impersonal. Events are one of the few moments when that can change. Human contact is available. Leaders become approachable. Conversations become more natural. There are scripts, but only in the right places. And clients can engage in real time, experiencing company culture in its truest form but only for the people in the room.
That can change with a clear visual strategy. Moving away from ad hoc sound bites and keynote video capture, and towards curated but natural content – executive interviews, client perspectives, candid team interactions, behind-the-scenes moments – that can fill newsletters and social pages for months. The kind of shot list that should be agreed before the venue is booked, not improvised in the hallway.Not staged, not generic, but authentic and credible. That takes intent and ownership.
Why ownership matters
When there is clear ownership of visual strategy, visual identity becomes an asset. Content stops being opportunistic and is instead integrated into event strategy from the outset. While the venue is being booked and the agenda finalised, the focus shifts to defining what to capture, how it will be used, and how it can further brand objectives. A pre-production brief, written, signed off, and put in the hands of every photographer and videographer on the day, converts ‘we’ll see what we get’ into something a marketing team can plan around.
Clear guidelines, properly enforced, don’t just produce better looking content, they reinforce the brand narrative, building client trust and familiarity over time. That requires accountability: someone taking charge and ensuring those goals are met.
The missing link
Ownership is one of the main reasons events are underutilised. But inconsistency also plays a part. Even when companies understand that content can be invaluable, understanding how to access it isn’t always simple, especially for businesses working in multiple territories. The lack of ownership means that most large financial institutions rarely work with a single creative partner across markets. Each city gets its own producer, each producer brings its own interpretation of the brand, and the cumulative effect is a visual identity that drifts a little further out of focus with every event.
As standalone events, the content produced might be passable, good, even. But when brought together, all that’s managed is a sense that cohesion is missing from the brand. Strong central direction and oversight help. A core creative partner, fully informed of the company’s intent and accountable for output across every market, is what turns a fragmented set of event coverage decisions into a consistent brand asset
The financial services sector understands that events carry value. It just doesn’t know how to unlock it. The industry is investing heavily in creating scenarios that make it feel more human, credible, and differentiated. But it’s forgetting that its biggest battles in that arena happen outside of the event rooms. Continuing to pursue and invest in events without first creating a strong visual content strategy and assigning ownership of it means that all of those carefully curated moments are quickly forgotten. And that’s a waste that no organization can really afford.
About the Author
Serge Bejjani is the co-founder and CEO of Shootday, a global photo and video production company operating across 150+ cities worldwide. He leads the company’s operations, sales, and client experience, building the infrastructure that enables brands to produce consistent visual content across distributed teams and international markets. His work focuses on scaling creative production through technology, global talent networks, and streamlined production systems.
