On the latest episode of Campaign Middle East’s On The Record podcast, Hari Carpenter, Head of Brand for Equiti, discusses the importance of balancing brand consistency with evolution; balancing rationality and emotion in the fintech space by maintaining a human touch; the importance of building trust through community initiatives; and the importance of humanity and storytelling in marketing.
The conversation reveals the role of brand – not as a top-of-funnel layer seated comfortably above performance marketing as a neat visual layer, but as the centre of gravity of the business. It should offer stability as the backbone of the business that builds trust, but be flexible enough to bend bravely and be bold as products, markets, platforms and audiences change.
In conversation with Campaign Middle East, Carpenter explains why balance matters quite a bit in fintech and trading, where trust is both rational and emotional. Carpenter argues that brands in this space cannot rely only on compliance, credibility claims or performance metrics; they also need to show up in people’s lives, speak in a more human language, and build confidence through action rather than assertion.
“It’s almost like you’re building an art gallery. The structure remains, but different artists come in at different times and cool things happen.”
Brands – What must move and what must not
Carpenter draws a clear distinction between a brand’s foundation and its expression. The foundation, she suggests, should be protected carefully. The way the brand behaves in market, however, needs room to change.
“Brand should never be treated as a decorative wrapper for performance,” Carpenter says. “You have to really look at it and ask: what are our core values that cannot change? We can’t be changing our tone of voice, our values or our mission statement because that is the foundation of the brand.”
She adds, “When you’re inconsistent, it really challenges people’s perceptions of you, especially in fintech trading, which is a rapidly evolving market.”
However, the risk, as she sees it, is that some businesses mistake sameness for safety. They lock themselves into a fixed way of speaking and executing, and then wonder why attention moves elsewhere.
Carpenter’s view is that the brand should provide the frame, not freeze the picture inside it.
“What can evolve, and what should evolve, is the way you execute,” she says. “If you keep being a static brand and you never have anything new or interesting to say, it’s very quick to become invisible. Some brands say: this is how we speak, this is how we say this, this is how we execute campaigns and then lock it down for five years. That creates an illusion of safety. It creates quite a big risk because people will forget about you or get distracted by someone else who is saying more interesting things.”
To explain the point, Carpenter uses the analogy of an art gallery. The location of the art gallery needs to be the same, but what happens inside the art gallery should keep evolving over time. That is especially important for a company that has grown quickly and brought new people and ideas into the organisation.
“Products, campaigns, sponsorships, business lines and offerings can evolve, but they still have to be genuine and in line with the values and the mission under the brand,” she says. “It’s almost like you’re building an art gallery. The structure remains, but different artists come in at different times and cool things happen.”
Sharing how this is reflected internally, Carpenter said, “Equiti has grown so much in the past four years. We have gone from 300 to 700 people. You get new leadership coming in sometimes and they will want to add their marketing, and that’s great, but it still has to stay true to the brand and what the brand is trying to achieve.”
“We’re here to stay, we care about this space, and we’re invested in the infrastructure. And with the Equiti metro station, there’s a GPS attached, which means we are literally part of the physical landscape.”
How brand activity isn’t performative but supports performance
Carpenter also shares a word of caution against treating campaigns as isolated bursts of activity justified by vanity metrics.
In her view, campaigns should not carry the entire burden of brands. It should express a deeper system that already exists.
She points to the Equiti Metro Station naming rights as an example. The value of the move, she says, was not simply in the reach, impressions or whether a QR code drove immediate conversion. The purpose was to signal presence, commitment and permanence.
Carpenter says, “We bought naming rights to a metro station, and people might ask: how many eyeballs does it reach? How many people are there? Is there a QR code converting people? That is not what top of mind should be about. The strategy behind that campaign was to show that we’re committed to the UAE. We’re here, we’re invested, and we’re expanding. Even this year, we’ve opened more offices and expanded our offices, and we really believe in the vision of the UAE.”
The station helped make brands part of people’s daily patterns. It was not just a media placement, but a physical signal that Equiti had put itself into the landscape of the UAE.
“We wanted to get across the story that we’re a good company. We’re approved. We’ve got funds and we’re solid,” she says. “Then we became part of a daily ritual in people’s lives. Even the way we wrapped the metro station and the pillars around it, we didn’t try to say everything at once. We said: we’re here to stay, we care about this space, and we’re invested in the infrastructure. And with the Equiti metro station, there’s a GPS attached, which means we are literally part of the physical landscape.”
Carpenter is clear that brand activity still supports performance. The point is that it does so by removing friction before the sales conversation begins.
Carpenter says. “When people know the name, or you spark curiosity with a brand campaign, it makes a lot of the trickle-down effect easier. Creating trust, curiosity and getting people talking about us by doing something a little unusual such as taking up the naming rights of a Dubai Metro station has worked really well. We track that through brand salience and uplift. We saw a 550 per cent uptick in three years, which was pretty awesome.”
“When you’re shouting with a chorus, it’s a powerful moment. But if you’re trying to shout over them or steal attention from them, it becomes a little disingenuous. You don’t need a huge budget to create experiences for people. You just need to listen.”
How brands can build trust by showing up
In fintech, brands often talk about security, regulation and reliability. Carpenter does not dismiss those points, but she argues that saying them is not the same as proving them.
For Equiti, community activity is one way to make trust more visible and more felt. That thinking shaped the brand’s decision to sponsor Dubai Basketball.
Carpenter explains the choice was not about borrowing equity from a property, but finding a story that felt close to Equiti’s own.
She says, “Why did we sponsor Dubai Basketball instead of many other options in sports? It’s because their story is so close to our story. They are regional talent performing on a global stage. They are the first club not from Europe to enter the EuroLeague Basketball, and they’re fun, exciting and community-driven.”
She adds that the brand approached the partnership by listening first. Instead of designing an activation from a boardroom and imposing it on fans, they paid attention to how the community already behaved.
“The first thing we did was start watching videos, listening to the fans and joining fan group discussions,” Carpenter says. “How do they talk about basketball? What’s real for them? They shout ‘Yalla Dubai’ with drums. It’s electric.”
That approach, she says, is central to how Equiti thinks about credibility. The brand does not want to interrupt what people already care about. It wants to understand it, support it and participate in a way that feels appropriate.
“The first step with anything we do is: what do people actually do? How do they actually behave? What’s real for them? How can we support that instead of trying to shout over it?” Carpenter adds. “When you’re shouting with a chorus, it’s a powerful moment. But if you’re trying to shout over them or steal attention from them, it becomes a little disingenuous. You don’t need a huge budget to create experiences for people. You just need to listen.”
“When you look at the emotional undertones of finance and why people want to invest, and why people want to feel in control of their money, whether it’s feeling more secure or trying to have multiple income streams, that is very human and emotional behaviour.”
Data and emotion need each other
Carpenter repeatedly returns to the need to combine evidence with feeling. At Equiti, she says, the marketing team does not make major decisions in isolation. Different perspectives come together, including regional insight, leadership direction, agency expertise and data.
“Our CMO has always pushed two things,” she says. “You need to mix digital insights and data, because data is so important, with emotion. The way of blending them together is when you get to something unique.”
That blend is especially important because finance is often discussed in cold, rational terms. Carpenter believes that is a mistake. Money may be measured in numbers, but people’s reasons for wanting financial control are deeply personal.
“For a long time, the finance industry has tried to make it less emotional,” she says. “Very numbers-driven, difficult jargon – almost like code language. When they say: ‘Buy S&P 500 when it hits this figure’ most people think, ‘What are you talking about?’ The reality of technology is that it is opening doors to finance, and the reality of money is that it is so deeply personal.”
She adds that the emotional side of finance is found in everyday motivations. People may want security, independence, confidence or simply fewer moments of stress when making basic decisions.
“Why is money important to people?” Carpenter asks. “They’re trying to buy a house. Maybe they want a yacht in Bali. Maybe they just don’t want to look at the bill when they’re paying for their friends, or not look at the prices when they go to the supermarket. When you look at the emotional undertones of finance and why people want to invest, and why people want to feel in control of their money, whether it’s feeling more secure or trying to have multiple income streams, that is very human and emotional behaviour. I don’t think finance is completely unemotional. I actually think it’s very emotional.”
“It’s equally important to speak the digital language as much as it is to speak a human storytelling language.”
A future built on human and digital fluency
Carpenter’s parting thought is that marketers should not try to fix everything at once.
The starting point is knowing what must remain consistent, then allowing enough room for curiosity, experimentation and growth.
She also stresses the importance of honest internal debates. She believes that it is better to challenge an idea before it leaves the room than defend weak work after it is in market.
“The most important thing is not trying to do everything at once,” she says. “Understand what needs to be fixed. Your values and your mission need to stay true to who you are and who your brand is, but that gives you more flexibility and space to grow. Don’t be afraid to take chances, and don’t be afraid to tell your colleagues that you don’t like an idea. It’s better to know in the room than before it goes out.”
Looking ahead, she sees the next few years as a test of two kinds of fluency. Marketers will need to understand digital systems and emerging non-human elements, but they cannot abandon the human craft of meaning, emotion and story.
“The most important thing is humanity, storytelling and a blend of storytelling and digital,” Carpenter says. “There is now non-human competition, so working together with it and being synchronised on it is going to help. You’re going to be talking and dealing with non-human elements as much as human elements in your future, so it’s equally important to speak the digital language as much as it is to speak a human storytelling language.”
Brands as living systems
The conversation with Carpenter is a useful reminder that brands are far more than a logo, a launch, a campaign line or a media buy.
Brands are closer to a living operating system: the values are the code that should not be rewritten every week, while the interfaces can and should adapt depending on where people meet the brand.
If the system is too loose, it breaks trust, and if it is too rigid, it becomes obsolete.
For fintech brands in particular, the lesson is clear: trust cannot be claimed into existence with a slogan, and emotion cannot be removed from money just because the category prefers numbers.
The brands that endure will be the ones that can stand firmly on their foundations while still moving with the market; the ones that can read the data without losing the human story; and the ones that understand that sometimes the most powerful brand statement is not what you say about yourself, but where, how and why you choose to show up.
Watch the full video podcast here.
CREDITS:
Guest: Hari Carpenter, Head of Brand, Equiti
Host: Anup Oommen, Editor, Campaign Middle East
Production: Surajit Dutta, Content Production Manager, Motivate Media Group
Videography: Mark Mathew, Creative Content Producer, Motivate Media Group
Studio: Ekaterina Shirshova, Creative Content Producer, Motivate Media Group
Editing: John Melencion, Content Producer, Motivate Media Group
