With media spelling doom and gloom for businesses, we wanted to create an opportunity for HSBC to take a more positive stance and tell the stories it was seeing every day – the stories of businesses investing, developing and growing.
Building on our experience of four years working with the world’s largest bank, and many years working in business finance, we recommended leading the debate on the future shape of British business, rather than just the here and now. 
The HSBC Future of Business report was developed to capture and celebrate how the forward-thinking businesses that HSBC likes to bank are getting ahead following the recession, creating aspirational stories for today’s business audience.
With the help of future trends agency The Future Laboratory, we built on research undertaken in 2009 to look specifically at how the recession had positively impacted the UK’s business base. We identified ‘super cities’ around the UK and what sectoral trends they will be known for in the future; identified where the UK is leading the world in business and worked with leading innovators in business to provide insightful comment and top-quality case studies.
Leading with a story announcing the resurgence of ‘Made in Britain’ and an infographic that restyled the traditional industrial map of the UK found in school atlases, we delivered record results. 19 national hits included virtually a full-page on page two of the Financial Times and the infographic middle page of The Times. The coverage didn’t stop with the nationals though, discussion on Twitter, blogs and other social networks and a media response from Business Secretary Vince Cable, drove significant debate amongst academic and city marketing organisations. Those crowned super cities celebrated while others stated their claims to be honoured in the future.
By working closely with the internal marketing team at HSBC, the report has also been used as a talking point for relationship managers with customers, and in a series of spin-off events around the country, adding real value beyond coverage.