Banks: Who do Consumers Trust?

“Consumers trust other consumers more than they trust brands.”

I come across this statement a lot.  Mostly in blogs and books/articles about social media.  The authors usually back this statement with results from one survey or another.

As if that settles anything.  Ask people who they trust more—other consumers or brands—and the majority will choose other consumers.

Most people won’t accept that they’re influenced by brands and brand marketing.  They see themselves—and want others to see them as—more savvy than that.

But that doesn’t mean they aren’t influenced by brands.  Decades of studies demonstrate that they are, but—the majority of the time—they’re not aware of being influenced.  The effects of influence take place mostly in the unconscious, and we have no way of accessing the unconscious.

In fact, the real question isn’t whether brand matters, but whether trust matters.  There is reason to believe that trust may be overrated as a decision factor.  Here’s an example:

Trust in big banks is almost non-existent these days, yet a number of big banks recently had an incredible year.  “I don’t trust big banks,” doesn’t seem to be translating into, “I won’t use big banks.”

A brand simply can’t be reduced to a concept like trust—it’s much more complex than that.

The whole brand, in all of its complexity, is something our rational minds may never understand, but always underestimate.

Banks and the Hierarchical Social Web

Question: What’s the difference between the social web and, say, office politics?

Answer: There isn’t any.

I came across an interesting article on Jonathan Lehrer’s excellent blog, The Frontal Cortex.  In it, he expresses concern about how:

“Online social platforms both magnify our hierarchies (by measuring our friends, followers, links, etc.) and erase the ‘disproportions,’ so that we suddenly find ourselves in the same monkey cage with a far larger number of monkeys.”

It should come as no surprise that, as the social web matures, it becomes more and more like the offline world.

Everyone says that social media is about people.  Well, this is how people act.  They compete.  They keep score.  They defend what’s theirs.  We’re not going to lose these hard-wired behaviors just because the technology changes.  Or, for that matter, because the generation changes.

These behaviors have survived from prehistory into the present.  They will continue to be passed from generation to generation until some misguided future generation decides to genetically tweeze them out.  And that will mark the beginning of the end.

Occasionally, I come across a book or article claiming that these behaviors are outmoded and no longer useful—that they are unfit for the modern world.

I beg to differ.  These behaviors make us human.  They are the strategies our genes developed long, long ago to ensure our survival.  And they’ve worked.  They don’t feel comfortable now because they never did.

But, hey, the bonding behaviors that fueled the social web’s growth are also survival strategies.

So is the social web becoming more Darwinian?  Or more fully human?

Bank Branding Webinar

I’d like to invite you to my upcoming webinar, “The 7 Laws that Govern Your Brand.”

Per the title, I’ll be discussing seven principles that underlie strong brands, and a new branding model derived from them.  It’s a quick 30 minutes, free, and geared toward bank marketers.  Here’s the lowdown:

The 7 Laws that Govern Your Brand
Wednesday, March 24th at 2:30 pm EST

To register, contact Marci Grzelecki:
248-643-6431 ext 221 or mgrzelecki@michaelflora.com

Hope you can make it.

Bank Haters

I haven’t posted in awhile, and I apologize for that.  Other bloggers with hectic schedules seem to be able to post regularly.  I don’t know why I’m having such a hard time with it.

Anyway, I was preparing for a webinar a couple of weeks ago, and I Googled the phrase, “I hate banks.”

Google returned over 54 million responses.

We’re not talking about frustration, anger, or even disgust here.  We’re talking hatred, and lots of it.  Even if three quarters of those responses aren’t relevant, you still have about 14 million left.

Have you thought about how all this generalized hatred is affecting your brand?

Is it only about the too-big-to-fail boys?  Or is it, “a high tide raises all ships,” in reverse?

Optimizing Bank Innovation

The topic of innovation seems to be heating up in banking circles recently. Normally, I would be excited about this.  Instead, I have mixed feelings.

My biggest concern is that the enthusiasm over innovation is simply a reaction to recent regulatory actions that have constricted profitable revenue streams.  If so, the “innovations” will be nothing more than workarounds designed to return profitability to these same streams.

My fondest hope is that there are real innovations on the horizon.  New ways of connecting customers and banks.  Technology and processes  to make banking more convenient and useful for the customer.  And creating competition around customer benefits that customers really want.

The true future of banking lies not in optimizing customers, but in optimizing customers’ lives.

Banks Can Be Heroes

“A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.”  — Joseph Campbell

I mentioned the hero’s journey in my last post, without any explanation or context.  I’ll remedy that here.

The context is mythology.  Specifically, brand mythology.

Bank marketers typically keep their distance from this end of the branding spectrum, because mythology seems too ethereal.  It’s anything but.  Many of the most successful brands in the world are built on carefully cultivated mythologies.  Harley Davidson (outsider), Apple (creator), and Campbell’s Soup (mother) come to mind.

Joseph Campbell, quoted above and no relation to Campbell’s Soup, was a scholar who spent his life identifying common structures in mythologies from around the world. Primary among these structures is the monomyth, also known as the hero’s journey.

Here’s the basic monomyth structure:

1. Ordinary World – Business as usual
2. Call to Adventure – Something upsets business as usual
3. Refusal of the Call – Hero is reluctant to leave what he knows
4. Deciding Factor – Someone or something cause him to reconsider
5. Crossing the Threshold – The hero begins his journey/adventure
6. The Road of Trials – The hero perseveres through a series of challenges
7. The Supreme Ordeal – The hero meets the ultimate challenge, overcomes it, and captures the object of his quest
8. The Escape -  The hero endures more trials before re-entering the world of business-as-usual
9. Return with Elixir – He returns with what he has learned or won for the benefit of his fellows

If this sounds familiar, it should.  The monomyth is the basis for a significant percentage of Hollywood movies—Star Wars, The Wizard of Oz, The Lion King, The Matrix, Gladiator, Groundhog Day, Casablanca, Titanic, Ben Hur, and When Harry Met Sally, to name a few.  A current example is Crazy Heart, the Jeff Bridges vehicle.

Here’s how it plays out in the current Domino’s campaign:

1. Ordinary World – Domino’s as it has been for, let’s say, the past decade
2. Call to Adventure – Complaints about product quality in focus groups
3. Refusal of the Call – Domino’s continues to focus on reliable delivery and affordability
4. Deciding Factor – YouTube video depicting employees doing disgusting things to Domino’s food puts the company’s reputation at risk
5. Crossing the Threshold – Domino’s decides to redirect consumer attention from cleanliness to taste
6. The Road of Trials – Company engages in trial and error process to improve the taste of Domino’s pizza until the new, improved pizza is finalized
7. The Supreme Ordeal – Domino’s needs to let the past go, and face the public with new pizza—it does so with a risky, new advertising campaign admitting to quality problems and showing the company dealing with this reality
8. The Escape -  The company endures criticism from pundits for abandoning existing fans.
9. Return with Elixir – Formerly critical consumers loves the new pizza

Any bank could employ the monomyth structure that Domino’s used so adroitly.  Which is not to say that a bank would need to expose its shortcomings.  A bank could tell the story of fulfilling a mission, overcoming a challenge, or self-transformation. The main point is to dramatize a change process—a heroic journey—that benefits the customer.

Banks, Brands, Promises, and Pizza

In recent years, the definition of a brand as a promise has dominated all others.  I can understand why.  It’s easy to understand, it sounds manageable, and it terminates any further need for exploration.

In other words, it’s convenient.  Which is a long way from saying it works.

Bank of America, for example, can make all the promises they like, but few people are going to believe them.  You might say it’s because they’re not delivering on their promises.  Fair enough.  But is that all there is to it?

I believe it’s because their brand carries meaning that overrides their promises.

One obvious current meaning is that, to much of the general public, the BofA brand represents unbridled greed.  The myth goes something like this:  “They caused the recession.  Regardless, we bailed them out.  Then they put the money in their own pockets instead of using it to help the economy.”

It doesn’t matter if the myth is true or not.  It constricts the power of any promise BofA can make.  This is a big, big problem, and it’s going to require a lot more than “reputation management.”  It’s going to require the creation of a whole new brand meaning—a whole new mythology.

Not quite as convenient as making promises, is it?

To demonstrate the kind of work that needs to be done, let’s look outside the banking industry at the new Domino’s Pizza campaign.  Over the years, the Domino’s brand had come to represent poor quality, and—by extension—doing the bare minimum, and simply not caring.  Here’s what Domino’s did about it:

The campaign shows that Domino’s is not only willing to face reality, but to be transparent about it.  Not only willing to rise to the challenge, but to be excited about it.  Finally—and this is the genius part—to be openly proud of what they’ve accomplished.

Talk about a change in meaning—this is a near-perfect execution of the hero’s myth:

This new meaning is what makes the product improvements—the promise—credible.  Without meaning, the promise would just be another “new and improved’ claim.  With it, the promise has real power.

And the moral of the story?  Don’t let convenience limit your brand.  Meaning is where the action is.

I’ll have more to say on brand meaning in a future post.

Community Banks, Credit Unions, and Arianna

One of the effects of social media has been the grassroots movement-on-steroids phenomenon.  For example, it’s been less than a month since the birth of Arianna Huffington’s Move Your Money initiative, and it’s already building big momentum.  Here are a few quotes from followers:

“I applaud the efforts of the people of this nation. This effort is a ‘human’ one…not a left, right, religious or non-religious. Real Change starts when the American people rise up and say…Enough is Enough. Move Your Money from these GREEDY banks Today!”

“I can’t remember the last time something has come along that truly and equally succeeds in motivating people to drop their red and blue team colors…in favor of pitchforks, torches and a hill.”

“I am so encouraged by this idea! I finally feel like we can do something that will impact our nation for good.”

“I very much appreciate this encouragement to say, “no!” to a wrong-headed worldview that bails out rich bankers and sends the bill to citizens. You can count on my money being moved to our local First Commercial Bank! Peace, and keep up the good work!”

“This is a fabulous idea, and the video is wonderfully compelling. I will share the link and move my money.”

Move your Money has given an angry America more than a voice.  It’s providing the public with a weapon that could do considerable damage.

This, of course, is not great news for the big banks, but I doubt they consider it a game-changer.  They are, after all, too big to fail.

For credit unions and community banks, however, it’s an unbelievable growth opportunity.

If ever there was a time to pull out all the stops, marketing-wise, this is it.

Jump into social media with both feet.  Take advantage of PR opportunities.  And, if you’ve got rates or some other advantage worth talking about, advertise.

As soul legend Howard Tate once implored:

“Get it while you can.”

Banks: Do We Need a New AIDA?

If you’ve been in marketing for awhile, it’s a good bet you’re familiar with the hierarchy of effects.  Or maybe you know its upside-down cousin, the purchase funnel.

The hierarchy is typically represented by the acronym AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action).  The AIDA model was meant to map the effects of traditional advertising.

In the era of social media, however, I think we need a new hierarchy.  I propose Attraction, Engagement, Experience, Diffusion.  Granted, the resulting acronym isn’t the hottest, but I think it better reflects the way social media works.

Attraction
This, of course, refers to pull (as opposed to push) marketing.  Instead of pushing messages out, be interesting or valuable enough to pull people toward you.

Engagement
This could refer to a range of engagements from reading a blog post to sampling to purchase and use.

Experience
Once the engagement has been initiated, the experience will decide if you go in the positive column, the negative column, or somewhere in between.

Diffusion
People with positive experiences will ideally spread the word, extending the reach of your attraction.

Technically, this isn’t a real hierarchy.  For one thing, there’s no drop-off between engagement and experience.  You can’t really have one without the other.

Maybe engagement and experience could be combined.  Or maybe it’s a cycle (or something else) instead of a hierarchy.

Maybe someone else has a better idea.

Think of it as a thought starter.

Start thinking.

Is Your Bank Futureproof?

In his new book, Innovation and the Future Proof Bank, blogger, James Gardner, offers a way for banks stay relevant in the face of disruptive change.

According to Gardner:

“The problem is the misconception that innovation in banks is something that can be turned on, like a switch.  The truth of the matter, though, innovation is a corporate capability that takes time to develop like any other.”

What banks need, he says, “is a business process which can predictably and reliably respond to all this change, and which doesn’t abandon the fundamental tenet of prudence upon which banks must rely.”

The solution he proposes is futureproofing, “the process of planning what the future might bring and doing something about it.”

The introduction lays out three characteristics of a futureproof bank::

1. Systematically focuses on tomorrow
2. Seeks out solution for the problems of tomorrow
3. Explores many things at once

There is ample evidence that futureproofing works.  A recent study, for example,  linked senior leaders’ focus on the future with their banks’ success in innovation.

Without futureproofing, says Gardner, banks will not be able to respond to change quickly enough to stay competitive.

The author knows from whence he speaks.  Until recently, he served as Head of Innovation and Investment & CIO Technology, at Lloyds TSB.  He was also part of the Financial Services Industry Group at Microsoft.

Regular reader of Gardner’s blog, BankerVision, know that he almost always has something thought-provoking to say.

Innovation and the Future Proof Bank will likely provoke a swarm of thoughts.