UBS: Crafting Capital

Challenge

As 2024 tipped into 2025, private markets hit a pivotal moment. After years in the doldrums, dealmaking was flickering back to life – but companies were staying private for longer, exit routes were uncertain and investors were under pressure to return capital.

In a noisy financial‑services landscape, UBS Investment Bank needed to stand out and show leadership after integrating Credit Suisse. Partnering with The Trust, the custom content division of The Wall Street Journal, UBS set out to create an agenda‑setting series that would equip senior decision‑makers with the clarity and conviction they needed for the next phase of private‑markets growth.

Strategic Solution

This campaign gave UBS Investment Bank a powerful stage to showcase the breadth of the UBS ecosystem through a Global Banking lens, with natural touchpoints across Investment Banking, Wealth Management and Asset Management.

Brand:

Entered by:

The core ambition was to establish UBS as the undisputed thought leader in private markets, reinforcing the firm’s strength in U.S. banking post‑Credit Suisse integration and bringing its broader “Banking is our craft” platform to life for a high‑stakes audience.

We knew our target audience – C‑suite executives, institutional investors and alternative asset managers – was both time‑poor and intellectually demanding. Proprietary and third‑party research confirmed that this group increasingly turns to podcasts for deep, flexible learning, consuming long‑form audio on planes, commutes and between meetings. An audio‑first strategy would therefore allow UBS to meet decision‑makers in their real listening moments, with content they would actively seek out rather than passively receive.

Strategically, Crafting Capital was designed as a series of agenda‑setting conversations, not corporate monologues. Each episode paired senior UBS leaders with heavyweight external voices from across the financial ecosystem, deliberately blending UBS’s proprietary insight with independent perspectives. This structure allowed us to tackle the full private‑markets lifecycle – from fundraising and capital deployment to exits, sustainability and human capital – in a way that felt practical, unvarnished and immediately useful.

By packaging complex investment themes into 20‑minute, fireside‑chat‑style episodes, we aimed to humanize UBS’s brand voice, spotlight its talent and judgment, and spark new consideration among high‑value clients and prospects. The series had to earn its place in listeners’ queues on merit – competing not just with other banks, but with the world’s best business podcasts.

Content Solution

The creative solution was a six‑part, 20‑minute podcast series delivering the journalistic credibility and production values of The Wall Street Journal, coupled with UBS’s deep financial expertise. Launching in January 2025, and dropping every two weeks, each episode explored a different dimension of change or innovation shaping private markets.

Hosted by WSJ Custom Content Global Head of Studio and veteran anchor Phillipa Leighton‑Jones, the series combined rigorous editorial framing with a conversational tone. Natural, unscripted dialogue allowed UBS leaders and their partners to share not only data and analysis, but also candid reflections, lessons learned and behind‑the‑scenes stories from the front lines of dealmaking.

Across six episodes, we deliberately curated complementary voices from within UBS and the broader ecosystem:

The Story Behind the Equity Capital Market Headlines – featuring Gareth McCartney and Tommy Rueger, Global Co‑Heads of Equity Capital Markets at UBS, and Maisa Badawy, Partner and Global Head of Capital Markets at Capital Group.
Alternative Asset Managers and Investment Banks: Partners or Rivals? – with Simona Maellare, Global Co‑Head of Alternative Capital at UBS, and Robert Seminara, Partner and Head of Europe at Apollo.
Sustainability Unpacked: Misconceptions, Markets and a Path Forward – with Laurent Bouvier and Therése Lennehag, leading UBS voices in Corporate Shareholder and ESG Advisory.
The Venture Capital Playbook – with Ben McLean, Head of Venture Capital at UBS, and Alex Gurevich, Managing Director at Javelin Venture Partners.
A New Dawn for Private Funds – with Kevin Kuryla, Global Head of Private Funds Group at UBS, and Jerry Pascucci, Co‑Head of Unified Global Alternatives at UBS.
Private Equity’s Human Equation – with Diron Jebejian, Co‑Head of Americas Sponsor Coverage at UBS, and Vahe Dombalagian, Managing Partner at Madison Dearborn Partners.

Visually and experientially, the series lived in a refined WSJ Podcast Center hub, with episodes also available on Spotify and Apple. The design stressed “Banking is our craft”, foregrounding UBS’s 150‑year heritage and multi‑disciplinary strengths while keeping the listening experience simple and premium.

By combining authoritative hosts, high‑caliber guests and tightly framed themes, Crafting Capital delivered an accessible yet sophisticated content experience for C‑suite audiences – one that felt authentic to UBS’s brand values while innovating within the financial‑services podcast space.

Media/Content Amplification Solution

To reach time‑poor C‑suite leaders and senior investors, the amplification strategy was built around precision, prestige and placement, with a fully paid‑for media plan across the Dow Jones ecosystem and beyond.

Each episode was supported by an integrated set of amplification assets designed to meet the audience where they already consume premium business content:

Content Integration Units (CIUs): Six sets of CIUs were strategically placed and contextually aligned with relevant WSJ editorial. These native‑style units mirrored WSJ’s premium look and feel, positioning each episode within a trusted, high‑attention environment and driving qualified traffic to the podcast hub.
Custom high‑impact unit: A bespoke, high‑impact video unit ran in the most premium ad slots across the Dow Jones network. This elevated the podcast from “another content series” to a marquee program, maximising top‑of‑funnel awareness and reinforcing UBS’s stature.
Audio shortcut placement: A dynamic pre‑ and mid‑roll audio format was integrated within relevant content on WSJ.com’s Podcast Center, capturing a growing audio‑first audience already in a listening mindset and seamlessly introducing Crafting Capital while users were engaged with comparable programming.
Dual‑format social assets: Six sets of paid and organic social assets, blending static images with short‑form video cutdowns, were optimised for LinkedIn. This allowed UBS to tap into professional networks where decision‑makers actively seek market insight, driving both credibility and engagement through thought‑provoking creative and concise episode hooks.
Long‑form audiograms: Full episodes were recut into visually branded audiogram formats for distribution across social channels and YouTube, creating a frictionless way for audiences to sample or complete episodes without changing platform.

Targeting combined contextual alignment with WSJ’s first‑party data capabilities to reach institutional investors, corporate finance leaders and alternative‑asset professionals. The partnership with The Wall Street Journal Barron’s Group was central: it provided not only premium inventory and audience scale, but also the brand equity and trust necessary for UBS to credibly lead conversations on private markets at a moment of volatility and scrutiny.

In combination, this multi‑layered amplification strategy turned Crafting Capital into an always‑on presence across the Dow Jones network and key social environments, ensuring the content worked hard at every stage of the funnel – from awareness and consideration through to deep engagement and completed listens.

Podcast completions vs. a target of 4,300.

0 %

Listeners who completed the 20 minute episodes.

1 in 0

Listeners from the C-suite.

Results

The campaign was built around a demanding set of contractual KPIs, reflecting UBS’s ambition for scale and quality. Traffic targets were set nearly 50% higher than typical benchmarks for comparable budget programs, with elevated expectations across podcast starts, completions, media engagement and audience profile.

Despite this, Crafting Capital outperformed on every core metric. Overall traffic to the series exceeded the goal by 24%, driven by the three‑dimensional promotion strategy that tightly aligned content placements with the most relevant media and podcast environments.

Podcast engagement was particularly strong. Starts finished 66% above goal, reflecting the power of both the WSJ partnership and the creative positioning. Completion metrics significantly outperformed: the series recorded 11,364 completions versus a KPI of 4,300, and our audiogram‑driven retention strategy delivered more than four times the goal for completed listens. In a cluttered content landscape, 40–54% of listeners completed 20‑minute episodes, an exceptional benchmark for long‑form audio.

Media promotion across the Dow Jones network and social channels also over‑performed, with KPIs exceeded by 2.7 to 3.2 times. This translated into both efficient traffic delivery and sustained visibility for UBS among priority audiences.

Critically, the campaign didn’t just deliver volume; it delivered the right people. Over one‑third of listeners were in C‑suite roles, with strong representation from institutional and general investors – closely aligned to UBS’s target decision‑maker profile.

Together, these outcomes drove meaningful brand impact: strengthening UBS’s position as a trusted partner in private markets and validating the decision to invest in a premium, audio‑led thought‑leadership platform. As the clearest signal of success and due to the high volume of listeners and subscribers, UBS renewed the partnership for a second season, which launched in summer 2025. We are now working on series two, featuring even more enlightening conversation between WSJ, UBS and experts who live and breathe private markets.