For me the highlight of the Digital Marketing Days Conference held in New York this week—Mintel Comperemedia was a sponsor—was listening to Thomas Hoehn, Director, Interactive Marketing and Convergence Media at Eastman Kodak. In his session entitled “Your Brand Deserves More Conversation,” Thomas showed how Kodak is a leader in social media marketing. As financial services companies grapple with social media, they could do themselves a big favor by looking at Kodak for an example of best practice.

Kodak has transformed itself, in recent years, from being a traditional “film” company into being a “digital” company. This was primarily an issue of consumer perception. After all, when we think of Kodak we think of a “Kodak Moment” – a phrase first used in 1961 which was meant to represent a special memory captured on Kodak film.

However, not many people know that Kodak was a pioneer of the digital camera business and actually invented the first digital camera in 1976. Fewer people know that, because of Kodak’s digital technology, it was able to provide the only television pictures of the Tiananman Square Protests in 1989.

A key part of the Kodak strategy involves social media, and the company stands out as one that has truly welcomed social media into its marketing mix. Kodak produces four blogs—it has been blogging for four years—and is always seeking new and creative ways to utilize the full range of social media tools.

Thomas Hoehn passionately believes that the worst thing consumers can say about you is nothing. Positive and negative comments about your brand, products or category abound in social media and both can provide marketing opportunities.

He handed out a color booklet entitled “Social Media Tips” which has been produced as a guide for vendors and partners of Kodak. The booklet includes Kodak’s social media policies as well and an outline of the company’s “Convergence Media Tactics.” It provides fascinating insight into Kodak’s approach to social media. He also handed out a booklet entitled “Mobile Marketing Tips.” You can download both booklets and review Kodak’s social media marketing efforts at http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/ourCompany/index.jhtml?CID=go&idhbx=followus.

To see how Kodak has recently updated its “Kodak Moment” campaign for social media, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA9puP2f6Fs.

Thank you everyone for attending my webinar yesterday on 2010 Banking Predictions, and thank you for submitting so many questions. I’ve answered most of your questions below, so let me know your thoughts!

If you’d like to download the slides or listen to a recording, click here.

Also, if you’re interested in learning more about Mintel Oxygen’s Finance Reports, please email Zach Leahy at zleahy@mintel.com. You can see a list of past and future titles here.

Q. Have you noticed a penetration difference between the $15 incentive and the $50 incentive. What is the optimal figure?

A. The $15 and $50 cash incentives were for increasing debit card usage. Typically on an acquisition campaign we see about $100, although amounts are increasing. For loyalty campaigns, the amounts are lower. The optimal figure is dependent on the total cost to increase debit card usage and the long term profit. Each bank is going to differ in that equation.

Q. As it relates to incentives, do these predictions still apply to non-traditional banks, like Schwab bank and other asset managers looking to acquire new clients and assets?

A. Investment firms are struggling right now with an image crisis. As a result, most investment marketing is focused on regaining trust or convincing consumers that the firm is focused on the customer rather than just on selling products or services. Investment firms typically don’t rely on incentives to acquire customers. Instead they rely on free seminars, webinars, education, etc.

Q. Do you predict any differences in these trends between banks, credit unions or other types of financial institutions?

A. Credit unions and smaller banks are less likely to use cash incentives and more often offer merchandise or the offer to buy back unused checks and debit cards. Across the other trends, however, we see similar types of things. We tried to incorporate examples from all types of banks to illustrate that point.

Q. Who’s going to win, regional or big banks?

A. Big banks are always going to win on the national level. However, while it’s almost impossible for a regional bank to compete with Chase, for example, on a national level, they can certainly compete with the Chase branch across the street.

Q. What banks do you see as having best practices in social media at this point?

A. Since banks are doing so little in social media, none of them really have developed a “best practice.” Certainly Chase was successful in its Community Giving Program that it moved to Facebook. It was a program that existed offline, but in an effort to make consumers part of the decision, the company moved it online. More importantly, Chase did it in a way that allowed Facebook members to participate in a meaningful way.

Q. Have we seen debit card promotions targeted at non-customers?

A. Absolutely. Debit cards are being aggressively marketed in acquisition campaigns. We see this mainly through rewards programs, since rewards are earned primarily through debit activity. But we also see cash incentives for opening a new account tied to a debit card and debit usage.

Q. Any predictions on credit cards as stand-alone products outside of a banking relationship?

A. Companies have recently moved away from this, so I don’t expect a return anytime soon. MBNA was bought by Bank of America and Capital One obtained its banking charter so that it could use deposits to fund its lending activities.

Q. Can you explain how the deposit money app works on the iPhone?

A. The feature works through an iPhone application that customers download from the iTunes Store. When the user accesses the application they are asked for their user name and password. To deposit a check, the customer touches “Remote deposit.” The check must be placed on a dark surface. Then the customer takes a picture of the front and back of the check. While in this mode, green lines are visible so the customer can line up the check correctly. Once both sides are captured, the customer clicks submit and the transaction is complete. A video of the process is available here:

Q: Have you developed any predictions for the future of credit cards?

A. My colleague Andrew Davidson conducted a webinar last September titled “Seven Predictions for the Future of Credit Card Marketing.” If you’d like a copy of this presentation, please email press@mintel.com. His predictions were:

1. Direct mail is coming back
2. There will be more integrated marketing campaigns
3. The brand message will become more important
4. The CARD Act will lead to creative new products
5. The national wallet will shrink
6. The subprime segment will redefine itself
7. The card industry will adapt to the environment

Today (Wednesday, May 5th), Mintel Comperemedia is hosting a webinar on “Seven Predictions for the Future of Banking.” Join Susan Wolfe, Vice President of Financial Services, as she explores seven key predictions for banking in 2010, using research and examples taken directly from Mintel Comperemedia and custom consumer surveys.

You can register and learn more here: http://www.mintel.com/us-email/compere_sevenpredictions.htm

This presentation will examine:

–The return of banks to “relationship banking” and how they will promote this
–Incentives and their importance in acquisition marketing campaigns
–Use of financial literacy programs by banks as they rebuild from the financial crisis
–Mobile banking as the “new” online banking
–Use of social media among financial institutions

Date and Time: Wednesday, May 5th, 2010 2:00pm-3:00pm CST (45 minute webinar, 15 minutes of Q&A)
Cost: Free

Vanguard launched a new advertising campaign last week encouraging investors to “stop just investing and start Vanguarding.” The company began the marketing campaign by running ads on the front page of each section of The New York Times Monday, March 15 and a full page ad in section A, page five.

A key component of the launch was tying the message of the ad with the content of the media. An ad on the front page of the paper stated, “Reading only the front page is just investing. Getting the whole story is Vanguarding.” The ad on the front page of the arts section read, “Going with the latest fad is just investing. Choosing a timeless style is Vanguarding.”

Vanguard’s marketing campaign takes a cue from companies like Bing and Google, who have sought to create verbs out of their names. The campaign seeks to return to the basics of investing and in doing so uses an old-fashioned approach—turning a company name into a verb.

Why this approach? Vanguard stated that with competitors’ increased advertising, it couldn’t take a “me too” approach. Vanguard wants to establish its way of investing as the best way—following sound principles, investing at-cost and partnering with a client-owned firm.
A digital component is also part of the campaign, with advertising placements on websites such as CNN Money and Yahoo Finance. Half of Vanguard’s advertising budget will be allocated to the digital space, compared to 30-40% in the past.

This new campaign is a great approach for the company and will definitely help differentiate it from competitors. However, since this campaign is different from Vanguard’s past approach, it will have to prove very successful in order to continue.

I spent the weekend crafting answers to the many great questions people sent during and after our “2010 Financial Services Trends” webinar. If you’d still like to check out the presentation slides or watch the webinar recording, click here.

Also, please don’t hesitate to use the comments field below to post more questions or to add to my answers. I’m very eager to hear what you think about our predictions and to get a dialogue started about major financial services trends for this year.

Without further ado… the answers.

Q1: Why do you equate saving with simplification?

This is a continuation of discussion we had in webinars last summer about how consumers are simplifying their lives. The basic premise is that saving money = buying less stuff = simpler lifestyle. Consumers generally save more during recessions, but in this case, it is part of a more general and longer-term trend that encompasses simplification.

Q2: Please expand on how social marketing provides “highly measurable ROI?”

Social and digital media tracking can provide a tremendous amount of behavioral data that can be used to determine ROI (return on investment). In terms of measurability, social marketing compares favorably to other marketing channels, such as TV or direct mail. For example, online data like click trails can show how well the social media strategy is driving visitors to the company website.

Q3: What was presented as a reasonable alternative to traditional banking during your research?

We often use examples in our survey questions, but in this case we didn’t. We simply wanted to measure the degree of consumer dissatisfaction with banks, not the degree of attraction to specific banking alternatives. However, some alternatives we could have mentioned would be accounts at brokerage or mutual fund firms, or perhaps prepaid cards with online bill pay services.

In a survey Mintel conducted in September of 2009, 5% of respondents said they “would leave my current bank if Walmart offered all the same financial services that my bank does”. In this case, Walmart could be considered a bank alternative.

Q4: Can you further explain Blippy? We do not understand the way it works.

Check out their website at http://blippy.com/. The site is basically a social media site that posts financial transactions so that everyone can see what you are buying. You can either designate a primary credit card or you can share your information at Amazon.com or iTunes for instance. People are calling it the “Twitter of personal finance.” This indicates that the trend of all our behavior being shared online is continuing.

Q5: Isn’t P2P lending a legalized version of loan sharking?

It is if the fee structure is exorbitantly high. However, our data indicates that many consumers don’t pay as much attention to fees as one would think. And the convenience of P2P will probably be a draw for a certain portion of consumers.

Q6: You indicated that 29% of people tend to ignore FS companies on social networking sites. How does this compare to other industries?

That’s a very interesting question, and it will certainly be included in our next round of consumer surveys on the subject of social media. Stay tuned!

We had a successful webinar yesterday; thanks to all who attended! Sorry about the sound difficulties at the beginning of the webinar.

Those of you who tuned in submitted tons of great questions about our financial services trend forecasts for this coming year. I’m crafting answers today and this weekend, so I hope to have them up on the blog by Monday. Please of course, feel free to use the comments field here if you’d like to submit more questions about our predictions.

In the meantime, Mintel Comperemedia’s fabulous marketing team has created a link to the webinar recording. You can either listen to it again (or for the first time if you missed it yesterday!) or you can download the slides to peruse at your own leisure. Click here to do so.

The time has come for a little self-promotion…

I know we’ve all been thinking (or is worrying a better word?) about what this year is going to look like in terms of consumer spending, saving, credit usage, lending, etc. Economists aren’t predicting anything dire for the economy, but they aren’t predicting anything great either. We’re still in a fragile state: consumers are spending, but not too much; job markets have loosened, but unemployment remains a major concern; banks are starting to pay down debt, but they still face many obstacles.

So what does it all mean? How will consumers react to the fading of the “Great Recession” and how can businesses capitalize? Which trends will have the biggest impact on the financial services consumer and how will his/her attitudes and behaviors change as a result?

These are exactly the questions I’m going to try to answer in my webinar next week: “2010 Financial Services Trends.” Please join me as we discuss next year’s biggest trends and what implications they’ll have on businesses and consumers alike.

The webinar is scheduled for Thursday, January 28th at 2pm CST. It will last an hour (including 15 minutes for questions) and it’s free. Click here to learn more and register.

Consumers are wary of certain volatile, risky investments these days, especially in light of the recession. In response, many banks have begun promoting Certificates of Deposits (CDs) as safe and predictable. With interest rates held down to almost zero by the Federal Reserve Board and the equity markets viewed as too risky, CDs are being marketed as the smart choice.

In direct mail and email, we’ve seen three themes prominently marketed in relation to CDs: rates, stability and predictable returns. Citibank, for example, hit all three of these themes in an email offering a CD with an attractive APY. The email addressed the recipient as a savvy saver looking for predictable returns. Bank of America, likewise, is cross-selling a 12-month CD to checking account customers with a letter that contrasts the “fluctuating” stock market with its “reliable” CD.

In a comparable email campaign, ING promotes its CD with “a guaranteed return with no market risk” and the ability to “open online in 5 minutes.” Even State Farm has been sending direct mail that contrasts the challenging stock market with the security of a State Farm CD. That particular letter asks recipients to call a State Farm agent to “discuss your continuing plans for safely growing your savings.”

CD offers are talking about the stable and predictable returns that other investments do not have in the current economy. A large number of offers mention the economy directly. High rates are a strong competitive point for CDs and they’re where investors will find a difference between products. The latest campaigns we’ve seen offer rates above the national average, some significantly higher.