Ciara Cox: Investing in the Long Game

For many brands, advertising tends to speak about the future. Hargreaves Lansdown’s latest campaign does something more unusual: it looks back.

Created by Wonderhood Studios, 'Helping Britain Invest Through It All' charts four and a half decades of British life — from political upheavals to cultural milestones — to remind audiences that investing has never existed in isolation from the world around it. Instead, it reflects the ups and downs of the nation itself.

It’s a confident statement of intent from the UK investment giant and a significant moment for its marketing leadership. After a period of change for Hargreaves Lansdown — including new ownership and a refreshed marketing strategy — the campaign signals the start of a new chapter for the Bristol-based brand, which has spent 45 years helping millions of Britons navigate the markets.

Leading that effort is Ciara Cox, who joined the business as marketing director earlier this year after senior roles across retail, sports betting and financial services. Her appointment reflects Hargreaves Lansdown’s ambition to modernise how the brand speaks about investing, shifting the conversation away from trading jargon and towards the lived realities of long-term financial decisions.

The Wonderhood Studios campaign is the first major creative expression of that thinking. Rather than presenting investing as a world of day traders or market drama, it frames Hargreaves Lansdown as a steady companion through decades of change . In short, it is a brand that has helped customers navigate everything from political turbulence to economic cycles.

For Cox, that balance between heritage and reinvention is central to the role. Having built her career across varied industries she brings a perspective shaped by both creative storytelling and data-driven marketing — a combination increasingly essential in financial services.

Creative Salon caught up with Cox to talk about launching Hargreaves Lansdown’s new brand chapter, choosing Wonderhood Studios as creative partner, and why great marketing still depends on instinct as much as data.

Creative Salon: This is the first campaign for you from Wonderhood Studios. Why made you pick them as agency partners?

Cliara Cox: After a significant year for Hargreaves Lansdown, marked by a change in ownership and renewed marketing leadership, it was important to find a partner who could help signal the beginning of a bold new chapter for the brand.

Wonderhood Studios stood out because of their ability to craft distinctive, and captivating work that sets them apart from the rest of the investment industry. As a business that has helped Britain invest for 45 years, Hargreaves Lansdown needed an idea that truly reflected its heritage, scale and national role.

Wonderhood understood the power of that legacy and developed a platform that was confident, proud and unshakably British, reinforcing Hargreaves Lansdown’s position as the nation’s trusted investment leader. Their creative ambition matched the significance of this moment for the brand, making them the right partner to launch this new chapter.

And why did you take the creative route for this campaign?

We knew we wanted to create a campaign that wasn't an abstract representation of Hargreaves Lansdown. It needed to say something meaningful and build emotional connections with our audiences and our clients. For our clients, it needed to make them proud to be with Hargreaves Lansdown and for new audiences, it needed to inspire and resonate, by tapping into some of the really pivotal moments in UK history that most of us will have lasting memories of. The campaign isn't just about Hargreaves Lansdown — it's about what investing looks like in reality. It's not day trading, it's not 'Wolf of Wall Street', it's not the GameStop saga. It's about navigating the political, economic and cultural ups and downs with a steady hand and one thing we know HL have done without doubt, is to be a hand to hold for investors, through every up and down over the past 45 years.

How did you become a marketer? Was it always something you wanted to do?

I have always been interested in creative industries, but I definitely fell into marketing. Following graduation, I had an internship with a company back in Northern Ireland and they didn't have a marketing department so I slowly became a consistent volunteer to take on all marketing activities and I loved it.

That sparked an entirely new passion in me, from both an academic and professional perspective. I spent the following years learning everything I could about marketing, doing every course and qualification I possibly could, and taking on every practical learning opportunity I could find.

My passion for marketing has only grown over the years. I love the variety... one moment I'm talking about marketing data & insights or digital journey optimisation and the next I'm talking creative routes or tone of voice. It takes a unique mix of skills to be a marketer and I really believe that's why our industry is full of some of the most interesting people you can meet.

You’ve worked in fashion and sports betting as well as financial marketing. How did these roles differ and what did you enjoy most about each?

I have always strived to gain experience across as many industries as I can as I genuinely believe it makes you a better marketer. Whether we stay in the same organisation or the same industry for decades, there are pros and cons to it. The pros are that you develop an incredibly deep knowledge of the sector. The cons (for me) are that it can add blinkers to you after a while. I have always enjoyed being able to take learnings and insights from one industry to another. There are often some really interesting ways in which you can take thinking from outside your industry, to innovate and disrupt in your own.

Fashion is a fast-paced and operationally complex industry to work in and requires a huge focus on creative/design to cut through. Equally, fashion retail unlocks some of the most cutting-edge omni-channel opportunities and provides some of the richest e-commerce experiences of any industry.

Sports betting was a big decision for me to make in terms of industry experience. I didn't know how I felt about it on a personal level at first, but when I spent time with the leadership team at SkyBet, the opportunity was one I knew I wanted to be a part of. It was an opportunity to implement genuinely customer-first strategies and by that, I mean it provided an opportunity to take regulations and make them entirely meaningful for customer outcomes. My time with SkyBet taught me some of the most valuable lessons in how regulations are not just there as legal guardrails... they can be a really, genuinely positive force for good in shaping customer experiences and providing truly tailored and personalised marketing lifecycle journeys.

In the same vein, financial services, being a heavily regulated industry, provides some really interesting challenges in how to be bold and disruptive within (very rightly so) strict parameters. This makes every marketing challenge - particularly creative ones, much more complex to solve and I love that. I have loved exploring ways in which financial services language can be more human and reflect a strong brand personality. I'm so proud of how I believe our campaign 'Helping Britain Invest Through It All, delivers a creative campaign within this industry, that overflows with character and confidence.

What excites you most about being a marketer?

The future. marketing never stands still and I love that about it. It is utterly impossible to simultaneously be a good marketer, whilst becoming stagnant in your skill sets or knowledge. We constantly have to keep our eyes on the horizon and see the world in 360-degrees. For many people that could seem exhausting or daunting, but marketers continue to be a distinct breed of adrenaline junkies and adventure seekers.

Is there a particular campaign from your career that you are particularly proud of?

Genuinely, it's the latest one — 'Helping Britain Invest Through It All'. And that's for lots of different reasons in terms of how it successfully aligns to our overall marketing strategy for Hargreaves Lansdown. However, on a very human level, we wanted to make sure that, even if investing isn't for you, you'd still be entertained and inspired by the ad. Even as marketers, we sometimes (often) skip ads. We wanted to make this one as un-skippable as possible and I really believe we have achieved that.

What frustrates you most about being a marketer?

It would be remiss of me not to list the perennial challenge we, as marketers, experience in having to demonstrate entirely tangible results for sometimes intangible achievements (one ad is not the same as another, for example. You can't put a £ sign on excellent creative, because you can't bottle what 'excellent creative' means in order to measure it). However, I will also add to the list the lack of 'human' thinking in some marketing campaigns.

Marketers are also consumers, and we shouldn't be afraid to use our own experience as consumers in making decisions. I am a huge marketing data geek and I want every ounce of data, insights and research to shape strategic decision-making, but I never want it to dilute our messaging, creativity or cut-through as a result of its influence.

In marrying the worlds of data, tech and creative in marketing strategies, it takes a healthy mix of objectivity and brave decision making to ensure each element contributes just the right amount to ensure they don't dilute your ability to use your instinct with confidence.