Here Are McKinsey’s Thoughts On Financial Marketing
A McKinsey Quarterly blog post on The Changing Face of Marketing contains the following: “Change is the dominant fact of life in every business today. And the ability to master and exploit change has become one of the most sought-after management skills. This is particularly true in marketing, where the very tempo of change is […]
Rethinking Social Media Marketing
Gallup released the results of a consumer survey which found (as reported on the Harvard Business Review blog): “62% of U.S. adults who use social media say that these sites have absolutely no influence on their purchasing decisions. Another 30% say these sites have some influence, and just 5% say they have a great deal […]
Banks/Credit Unions: The Anti-Firefly?
Here are some things I’ve learned from recent consumer research I’ve conducted (nothing earth-shattering, but at least there’s data to back up the assertions): Gen Yers have an impulse purchase problem. Six in 10 “young Gen Yers” (21-26 yo), and half of “old Gen Yers” (27-34 yo) say they don’t save more money than they […]
The Facts About Payday Loan Borrowers
Nobody is more articulate about the wrongheadedness of the US government’s vendetta against the payday lending industry than Tom Brown of Second Curve Capital, writing at bankstocks.com. Tom recently wrote: “If the federal government wants to put an end to payday lending, Congress should act, or at least the CFPB should write some rules that […]
Define Disruption
It was an honor to be asked to participate on Brett King’s Breaking Banks anniversary show. It was frustrating, however, that every time Voice America added someone on Skype, *I* was the guy who got dropped from the call (yeah, I know: it’s called karma). Even more frustrating though, was missing an opportunity to rebut […]
Bank Simple, Email Hard
Not that he needs my sympathy, but I kinda feel bad for Simple CEO Josh Reich. He made a simple mistake, and is paying for it for with some unwanted publicity. He mistakenly emailed an internal document to a reporter from some publication called Quartz, who–surprise! surprise!–published the not-so-ready-for-prime-time statistics, and claimed that Simple “seems […]
How Social Media Marketers Spend Their Time
If you thought social media marketers sat around and did nothing all day, then you’re totally wrong. They work hard, damn it! And now, thanks to some organization called the Social Media Marketing University, we have proof.
Speed Bumps On The Path To Payments Disruption
A common trait among emerging generations is a desire to break from the past, and overcome the sins of their fathers (not mothers, because women are perfect, and if they’re not, I, sure as hell, am not going to be the guy who tells them so). What’s funny about the newest young generation is their […]
Protecting Debit Card Interchange Revenue
A recent survey of credit union executives conducted by Aite Group and Filene Research found that roughly eight in 10 respondents said that growing debit card interchange revenue is “very important” to their firm’s revenue growth plans for 2014. I would bet that plenty of other FIs (especially those with less than $10b in assets) […]
Competing On Performance: Marquis’ Member Value Statements
A recent Financial Brand article titled Proving The Value of Credit Union Membership highlighted Marquis Software’s Member Value Statements (MVS), a new service that “calculates specific dollar amounts for each members showing the relative value of their credit union’s products compared to similar products offered by nearby FIs.” The article quotes Marquis’ GM/Creative Director Tony […]
What Are The Major Misunderstandings About Bank Customer Rationality In Marketing?
We throw around terms like logic, emotion, and rational too loosely in marketing. Don't always buy into the conventional wisdom.
Can a Credit Union Make Bread Off of Panama Red?
Can financial institutions (FIs) create a new source of revenue from the fledgling marijuana industry? Opinions differ. According to an article published on The Financial Brand, an AVP at a Colorado-based credit union said the pot business is too big for FIs to ignore, and was quoted as saying: “It’s vitally important that this industry […]
Millennial Millionaire Mularkey
Man oh man, some of you will believe anything you hear. In an article titled Millennial millionaires just want to get rich, CNBC reported: “A report from The Shullman Research Center, titled Millionaires Have Their Own Generation Gap, found that 23% of today’s millionaires are millennials. There are now about 5 million millennial millionaires. That’s […]
The Debanked: An Update On Unbanked Consumers
Most of you are genuinely nice, caring people who sincerely want to help other people who may be in need. Whatever. But for too many of you, your view of what it means to be “unbanked” in America is off-kilter. Bring up the topic of unbanked consumers, and it conjures notions of poverty-stricken, under-served and […]
Marketing Gurus And Marketing Morons
Dr. John Dawes nails it. In a white paper titled Marketing Gurus and Fads – how to avoid them, Dawes writes: “Marketing abounds with ‘fads’ – which over-promise and under-deliver. These messages are sometimes presented as the ‘secrets’ of companies that are supposedly fantastically successful at the moment. The sad fact is that most of […]
Why There Is No Amazon Of Banking
According to a recent American Banker article titled Amazon Becomes Retail Bank Role Model: “Amazon has revolutionized everything from publishing to online shopping. Can it save retail banking? At Retail Banking 2014, bank execs repeatedly invoked Amazon as an example of what they aspire to become. One said ‘Amazon was conceived around the use of […]
PwC Data on Banking in 2020
PwC released an excellent report recently, titled Retail Banking 2020: Evolution or Revolution? Reading through the report triggered some thoughts: PwC: Fewer than 20% of (banking) executives feel well-prepared for the future. My take: The other 80% told the truth. ———– PwC: 70% of global bank executives believe it is very important to consider how […]
The Myopia in the Banking Industry
In the annals of the Harvard Business Review, Marketing Myopia by former HBS prof Ted Levitt, is a classic. As HBR puts it, the article: “Introduced the question, “What business are you really in?” and with it the claim that, had railroad executives seen themselves as being in the transportation business rather than the railroad […]
Are Banks Really Digital Laggards?
Two recent tweets caught my attention: @Chris_Skinner: It’s not Branch versus Digital, but digitizing all channels including branch @gschmeltzer There is no head of digital at Amazon or Zappos – they ARE digital. Banks need to be, too. Both spot-on tweets. Ginger’s tweet, though, got me wondering: Exactly how digital (or not) are banks? A […]
Why Do Consumers Open Bank Accounts?
More goodies from the EY 2014 Global Consumer Banking Survey…. EY asked consumers who had opened and closed bank accounts in the prior 12 months what their reasons for doing so were. Here’s what EY found: My take: These aren’t the “reasons” why consumers opened accounts. The most prevalent (if not only) reason why consumers […]
Maybe The Experience Doesn't Matter (That Much)
EY (is it not called Ernst & Young anymore?) released its 2014 Global Consumer Banking Survey recently. For a better review of it than I’ll provide here, see the summary on The Financial Brand, or download the report directly. The report goes to some lengths to establish the connection between the level of trust consumers […]
Simple: In Name Only
Congrats to the Simple team on their sale to BBVA. But truth be told, I never was a big fan of what they were doing. Maybe that’s too strong a statement. It’s not that I wasn’t a “fan,” it’s that I didn’t buy into all the hype, all the talk about the NeoBank being “disruptive.” […]
