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.

AIG recently reported a 4th quarter 2009 loss of $8.9 billion. Though this is substantial, it is a significant improvement from the $61.7 billion loss reported at the end of 2008.

American General Financial Services (AGF), the company’s lending operation, reported a 4th quarter 2009 operating loss of $309 million compared to an operating loss of $248 million in 2008, resulting from “a decline in finance charge revenues reflecting lower average net receivables and a higher provision for loan losses.”

In its quarterly earnings report the company goes on to state that AGF anticipates that its primary source of funds to “support its operations and repay it’s obligations” will be customer receivable collections and additional on-balance sheet securitizations and portfolio sales.

As a result, AGF has stepped up its efforts to acquire new customers. In January, US consumers received more than 8 million mailings for new personal loans from AGF, up from less than 1 million a year ago. This accounted for 26% of all personal loan mail volume during the month. In contrast, Discover, the second largest mailer in January mailed 5 million mailings and Citibank mailed 3 million.

AGF faces an uncertain future. The AIG earnings report states that the company is exploring “strategic restructuring opportunities” for AGF. However, indications from the mailbox in January suggest that AGF is determined to build up its loan portfolio and strengthen its position in the marketplace.

In December 2009, Advanced Financial Services changed its name and rebranded as Embrace Home Loans. This was a significant move for a company that has been in operation since 1983. Advanced Financial Services used direct mail as its primary marketing channel and in Q4 2009, we began to track the first direct mail offers branded as Embrace Home Loans.

Advanced Financial Services actually remained profitable despite the downturn so, therefore, the rebranding is more about tapping into its potential for future growth. Commenting on the name change in a press release, Kurt Noyce, President of Embrace Home Loans, said, “we now find ourselves in an enviable position with many opportunities for future growth, but our name hasn’t kept pace with that growth. We have not been available in all markets and were easily confused with many other financial services companies. So we decided to make a change with a name that defines not only what we do, but also what we care about.”

The launch includes a new website that promises to “help customers feel comfortable and secure every step of the way.” The site features customer testimonials from the 46 states Embrace operates in, as well as video recordings of staff explaining how they have helped customers.

Most of the offers from Embrace Home Loans in Q4 2009 utilize a black-and-white version of the orange Embrace logo and the same creative that was mailed under the Advanced Financial Services brand.

Some offers, however, reveal a new orange logo and the message, “embrace the possibility.” These offers tap into Embrace’s new values. For example, in one marketing piece, a Post-it note adds a personal touch and the text is customer centric in its focus. The offer explains how Embrace wants to save its customers money because rates are at historically low levels.

The Embrace rebranding follows the launch of the Bank of America Home Loans brand in April 2009. These two firms are currently the top two direct marketers in terms mortgage acquisition mail volume. The rebranding efforts are encouraging because both lenders are re-positioning themselves to take advantage of a potential recovery in the mortgage market.

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 recent PBS Frontline documentary, “The Card Game,” broadcast on November 24th, included a critical report on payday lenders. There are approximately 23,000 payday lender outlets in the US, despite payday lending being illegal in 15 states. As PBS put it: “there are twice as many payday lenders as there are Starbucks, lending out more than $40 billion a year.”

Payday loans are generally used by lower income consumers who have checking accounts. The loans are typically for just a couple of weeks, in advance of a paycheck, and they almost always incur high fees.

From what we’ve seen, email is the most popular channel for payday loan marketing. In fact, the majority of unsecured loan acquisition emails are from payday lenders or third parties looking to connect consumers with lenders.

The FDIC has recently instigated a program encouraging banks to offer short-term, small dollar loans of under $2500 to compete with payday lenders. Do you think this will work? Or do you think payday lenders will continue to bombard consumers with email offers and dominate the market?

An incentive just for having (and paying, of course) a mortgage? Well that’s one way to make today’s dim economic picture a little brighter. In August, Chase announced a new program offering 1% cash back on mortgages held by Chase checking account customers. We started seeing offers for this appear in direct mail in October.

Mortgage incentives aren’t new, but an on-going cash back program is something we haven’t seen before. “Chase Exclusives”, which the 1% cash back program is part of, rewards checking customers for using other Chase products. It’s a great loyalty builder; tapping into the ongoing consumer need to get more for less and really delivering on the promise of an “incentive” for working with Chase.

Customers receive the 1% cash back if they follow certain criteria on new or existing Chase checking accounts. They can receive the rebate either in cash or apply it towards the mortgage principle.

Is 1% back enough to prompt mortgage-holders to refinance with Chase, especially with lending standards tightened? How else can financial institutions innovate to get more out of the customers they have?