How Marketing Quietly Runs the Financial World

You know, I’ve been reflecting on something that’s become glaringly obvious in my line of work — yet still somehow gets brushed off by most. 

We like to think of national or global finance as this independent, towering entity. Imposing. Untouchable. Numbers on spreadsheets, interest rates, central banks — all very serious, all very detached. 

And marketing? That’s just a bunch of creatives playing with taglines and colour palettes, right?

Except it isn’t. 

In truth, marketing does far more than sell products. It shapes perception. And perception moves markets. Quite literally.

A bottle of water and $4 billion gone

Take the Cristiano Ronaldo moment at the Euros in 2021. He sits down at a press conference, spots two Coca-Cola bottles placed carefully by their sponsors, pushes them aside, and holds up his water. “Agua.”  

Within hours, Coca-Cola’s market value dropped by around $4 billion.

Now, that didn’t happen because their quarterly earnings changed overnight. It happened because of perception. Because one of the world’s biggest athletes, in one casual gesture, rewrote the story investors were telling themselves about the brand. 

That’s marketing. Or rather, that’s what happens when marketing loses control of the story.

Marketing is now baked into financial strategy — and that’s a huge shift

It’s fascinating really. If you look back just a couple of decades, finance and marketing barely occupied the same orbit. In the old days, the City or Wall Street would have scoffed at the idea of bringing in brand experts to shape investment decisions. Finance was about balance sheets, forecasts and hard assets — end of story. 

But fast forward to today, and you’ll find private banks, wealth managers and heavyweight investors actively hiring marketing strategists. They’re not doing this for fun — they’ve realised that brand equity and narrative aren’t side dishes anymore. They’re core to protecting and growing wealth.

Take IPOs. Companies now pour millions into shaping the story long before the shares ever hit the market. Why? Because the narrative can boost valuations by 30-50% compared to a sterile, purely asset-based approach. Investors might pretend it’s all about numbers, but they’ll pay a hefty premium for a compelling brand promise. 

Even private banks, who traditionally managed discreet portfolios, are increasingly advising clients on the brand strength of firms they buy into. Some now employ in-house brand and marketing analysts. Why? Because they’ve seen how quickly market perception — driven by marketing, by public sentiment, by storytelling — can either safeguard an investment or sink it overnight. 

So what used to be separate worlds — finance over here, marketing over there — have become intertwined. Today, they’re strategic partners. And more often than not, it’s the marketing experts who end up steering the ship on how those multi-million (or multi-billion) decisions are positioned and sold. 

Because in the end, finance may run on numbers, but it’s fuelled by confidence. And marketing is what builds that confidence long before the first pound ever changes hands.

Why countries pour millions into marketing

And it’s not just brands. Whole countries run on this.  

Look at the Maldives. Roughly 28% of their GDP comes from tourism. Croatia, around 19%. Those numbers don’t magically appear because people independently decide to pop over. It’s sustained, deliberate marketing — campaigns designed to make you picture yourself on their beaches rather than someone else’s. 

Without marketing, their national income simply doesn’t exist at those levels. Their balance sheets, debt servicing, social programmes — all rely on what, at heart, is marketing expertise.

Even CEO changes are marketing moments

Same goes for leadership. When a company changes its CEO, you’ll see headlines everywhere. Investors react instantly, not because the factories stop running, but because the story changes.  

When Steve Jobs stepped down from Apple in 2011, Apple lost around $10 billion in market value in just minutes. The business fundamentals didn’t vanish — but confidence did.

That’s not an accounting issue. That’s a marketing issue. Or more precisely, it’s the market responding to a shift in narrative.

I’ve witnessed this firsthand — and it’s exactly where I operate

I’ve seen all this play out up close, time and again. As a strategic marketing expert, I specialise in analysis, branding, PR and the wider marketing toolkit — the very levers that shape how markets think and behave. It’s this expertise that allows me to help investors and private equity funds not only grow share value, but also sharpen their entire financial performance, from revenue and profit margins to cost per acquisition and lifetime value.  

Because yes, the spreadsheets matter. Revenue, CAC, LTV, profits — they’re all crucial markers. But the single biggest force that moves those numbers is psychology: how well you control the story, how you anchor perception, and how you turn belief into tangible financial outcomes. 

I’ve advised on valuations and brand positioning ahead of public offerings, watched narratives transform cautious investor rooms into bullish ones, and led strategies that effectively added zeros to projections before a single additional sale was made. 

At the end of the day, a brand isn’t just a logo. It’s an economic engine. A nation’s image isn’t just fluffy tourism PR — it’s fiscal strategy dressed up in lifestyle campaigns. 

So next time someone tries to separate marketing from finance, or scoffs that it’s all just colourful slides, remind them of this: entire economies and stock markets are being steered by the perceptions marketing crafts. 

That’s why, at the highest levels — from private banks to sovereign wealth funds — marketing isn’t just respected. It’s depended on. Because the world doesn’t run solely on numbers. It runs on belief. And belief is very much marketing’s playground. 

Elvijs Plugis

Strategic Marketing Consultant / Fractional CMO

elvijs@sigulp.co.uk