A game of FTSE

It's always nice to be asked to help a client mark a special milestone, but when London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) asked us to produce a booklet celebrating the 20th anniversary of FTSE, they presented us with a tricky challenge: how do you celebrate the birthday of a famous institution while at the same time introducing its newly created indexing company, FTSE Russell?

The answer was Index Insights, a week-long, integrated digital marketing campaign that chronicled FTSE’s rise while explaining how FTSE Russell plans to remain at the forefront of global indexing.

First, we produced an electronic booklet that looked back at the history of FTSE, from the early days of indexing, when calculations of benchmark levels were mainly done manually just once a quarter, right through to today’s world in which FTSE Russell calculates more than 1,800 indexes in real time.

The booklet also featured quotes from clients and business partners reflecting on FTSE’s achievements and congratulating the organisation on its 20th anniversary.

We then took content from the booklet and repurposed it for the rest of the campaign. On the Monday, we ran an introductory blog and video from FTSE Russell CEO Mark Makepeace. And over the next three days we ran a three-part feature that looked at the past, present and future of indexing. The series was complemented by a timeline that showed key milestones in the history of indexing from 1884 to the current day. Then, on the Friday, we published the booklet, along with an animated infographic that showed just how far FTSE has come since its foundation in 1995.

The result was an entertaining and informative digital marketing campaign that not only drew praise from a number of people at FTSE Russell, including the CEO, but attracted more than 1,000 unique views and many happy returns throughout the week.