In all fairness, The Financial Brand never said Bank Transfer Day would fail. Critical and analytically skeptical? Yes.

Here is an excerpt: “Certainly smaller financial institutions across America will see some lift in new accounts throughout the fourth quarter, but it’s unlikely much credit will be owed to Bank Transfer Day… Bank Transfer Day isn’t likely to push very many people to close their bank account.”

Is that a prediction of failure? It depends on how you view the data, and your qualitative standards. 9 out of 10 people who switched didn’t cite Bank Transfer Day, 1 in 10 did — that’s only about 1 in 400 big bank customers. Does that amount to “much credit?” Maybe. Is 610,000 people “very many?” Perhaps. Again, it depends on your perspective. Credit unions see it as a big win. Big banks would probably say it stung a little, but who needs fee-sensitive deposits anyway?

I’m sorry you’re disappointed with The Financial Brand’s analysis, however I believe previous coverage of Bank Transfer Day has been fair. Was Bank Transfer Day flawed? Was it a failure? I don’t think that’s the takeaway. For credit unions, its primary value was as a PR tool, no doubt about it. From a PR perspective, BTD was a boon for CUs and a bane for banks. But as a “switching event,” could Bank Transfer Day have been better? Could it have had a much bigger impact? Aren’t those fair questions?

Either you trust Javelin research or your don’t – can’t do both. If their research says 11% surveyed SWITCHED because of BTD – are you seriously questioning their 9 year qualitative and quantitative surveying process on this very topic (bank transfers) by saying they are mistaken and those surveyed merely meant they were AWARE of the movement? They didn’t just decide to survey people because of this movement. It’s a long time process and they report a change was indeed seen because of BTD. Love you – but I trust their data and reporting over your need to prove this movement was a bust.

Local note: They two credit unions I support indeed saw new members during the week of BTD. But even more importantly: internally they see a need to improve their online sign up process, offer weekend and longer evening hours and their customer service overall. This specific event was brought up in strategic planning meets (not by myself but board members). BTD was not just last Nov. It brought up great things that needed attention.

I was checking my email over a bowl of yogurt, granola, and pineapple this morning, and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud when I saw this article featured in your latest blast. Actually, it was the entire “featured article” experience that caught me by surprise: the BTD image, the reference to the “cold hard facts,” and of course, the play on words with “fee-asco.”

I’m not sure if laughter was really what you were going for when you chose said image and title, but it did get me to click through and read the story in its entirety.

I completely agree with the numbers, your argument about technology, and catchy names, but do really think that BTD was a “fiasco”? Your article’s title certainly implies that you do, but the content of the article doesn’t seem support that viewpoint. Aside from your use of the word “hullaballo,” it wasn’t the passionate, I-know-where-the-dead-bodies-are-buried article I was expecting. Don’t get me wrong! It was extremely well written and very refreshing, but I guess it’s like you said, “…we will never really know [the answers] for sure.”

For me, BTD was about generating awareness. Yes, it had its flaws, but what movement doesn’t? Maybe it didn’t deserve as much play as it got, but at least someone spoke up and got (some) people to look. It’s like my boss always says, “There are two types of people in this world: creators and editors. The editors will always critique what you create, but you’re the one that took the initiative to do something in the first place.”

Thanks for the enjoyable morning read.

Kimberlee

Great observation with the 11% awareness level of BTD stat in the survey. By comparing the google trends data you can see that the search volume for “bank transfer day” was inflated and driven by the media coverage.

Bank Transfer Day
http://www.google.com/trends/?q=bank+transfer+day&ctab=0&geo=all&date=ytd&sort=0

The search volume is very peaked around the 4th which is when the bulk of mainstream press exposure was made.
Vs.

Bank of America debit card fee
http://www.google.com/trends/?q=bank+of+america++debit+card+fee&ctab=0&geo=all&date=ytd&sort=0

Really from an SEO stand point you could argue that Molly’s name was more effective, because it was directly related to the issue of consumer anger BOA’s $5 fee, but she likely generated more sign ups because of viral traffic than search traffic.

At the end of the day what should be most important to the CU industry is this chart

What is a credit union?
http://www.google.com/trends/?q=what+is+a+credit+union&ctab=0&geo=all&date=ytd&sort=0

notice the peak that aligns with the fee and the BTD coverage. Consumer awareness and interest in CU’s was raised that week and that’s going to have a more positive and long term effect than any amount of account transfers from that week.

Regarding your second point, the Javelin study said 11% of consumers who switched did so because of Bank Transfer Day. While I agree with you — Bank Transfer Day was not a root cause of increased switching — that isn’t what the study concluded.

I don’t see the article about the lameness of Bank Transfer Day’s name contradicting anything in this article here. All the previous story said is that Bank Transfer Day could have had a better name. The article published here points out that having no name (e.g., “sign my petition”) will not be as successful as something having a unique name (“Bank Transfer Day”). That Bank Transfer Day is a unique name making it more Googleable does not mean it is a great name. The point is that by having a non-generic name, Bank Transfer Day gained more media traction than its generic-but-more-successful counterpart.

Regarding your final question: No, the statement you quoted does not apply to consumer banking exclusively. The point is that nearly every American has at least one type of relationship with a big bank (loan, credit card, DDA), despite the fact that so many say they hate such financial institutions. There are over 320 million people in America. The Financial Brand estimates that as many as 200 million Americans (63%) have some sort of DDA relationship with a big bank, but there really isn’t any data to confirm or refute this. 0.3% of 200 million is 610,000.

First you cite Javelin saying the number of consumers that switched accounts was not up much from previous Q4s but it was up. You go on to cite Javelin saying it actually expected switches to decline in Q4 prior to Bank Transfer Day. So really, the number of switches was up quite a bit from what was expected if I’m reading that correctly.

Second, I don’t think anyone really believes Bank Transfer Day was the cause of the switches. BofA’s $5 fee was the cause of Bank Transfer Day and many of the switches. The coining of Bank Transfer Day was symbolic and raised awareness.

Finally, SEO is important if you’re running anything online as you well know, particularly something like a petition to stir up a viral movement. Yes, Katchpole could have come up with more SEO friendly name to get found out and probably would have captured even more signers for her petition as well as media attention. But you also contradict yourself on the point of a “catch name,” here: http://thefinancialbrand.com/20199/bank-transfer-day/

But a question about this stat: “Collectively, the four megabanks — BofA, Citi, Chase and Wells Fargo — have a relationship with practically everyone in the U.S. So if they lost a combined 610,000 customers over Bank Transfer Day, they didn’t even lose even 0.3% of their customer base.” Does that cover strictly consumer banking? Bank of America alone has banking relationships with 99% of Fortune 500 companies and 83% of Fortune Global 500 companies, which accounts for much of their business. These aren’t the types of accounts that have their pick of institutions to handle their banking.

Thanks for keeping debate alive,
Sarah