John Ryan | Blog

In this month’s TED Talks, John Gerzema, marketing strategy whiz and co-author of The Brand Bubble, imparted poignant insight, facts, and anecdotes on the enormous cultural shift that has occurred over the past year. Here is a hopeful outlook on the new landscape, which ought to inspire new strategies to traverse it.  “If you think about the last three decades, the consumer has moved from savvy about marketing in the ’90s, to gathering all these amazing social and search tools in this decade, but the one thing that has been holding them back is the ability to discriminate. By restricting their demand, consumers can actually align their values with their spending, and drive capitalism and business, to not just be about more, but be about better.”

There’s no doubt about it: Microsoft Surface-type computing interfaces are compelling. The idea of taking graphics and data and then moving them, bumping them, merging them — it’s a way of interacting with computers that we have only been able to picture in movies.

But so far, we’ve mostly seen lightweight applications of the medium. Brochureware (yawn). Interactive restaurant menus. Video, image and music file managment (not boring, but not life-changing either).

Late last year, Marley Gray, Microsoft’s point man on banking, had this to say about the potential role of Surface computing in financial services:

While Microsoft Surface isn’t currently deployed in any retail banking scenarios, we envision Surface as a platform that could potentially enable a shift in the way customers learn, service, and buy products in a retail banking environment. In addition, it can be used as a way for customers to browse product information by financial scenario or direct product comparisons as well as in private banker meetings for things like financial planning and account opening.

Is there a serious application for surface computing in the bank environment? The above video about virtual autopsies shows how gestural computing can let users manipulate complex and layered information. And isn’t that a good way to describe finances – complex and layered?

Whether it’s a consumer considering at different investment options or a business owner considering cash-flow scenarios, the structure of financial instruments and services can be mind-numbingly complex. Or boring. Either of which results in prospects not paying attention and not comprehending the full value of what the bank has to offer.

What if…bankers could conduct “what if” scenarios with customers by moving and sliding visuals, rather than pointing to data tables? Would financial planning be a more compelling offering if budgeting was an object-oriented exercise? Could bankers themselves benefit from seeing their accounts (and the risk therein) displayed more visually?

There is never a lack of interesting information and opinions on the Web. Some of it is even useful. While link posts might be considered the last refuge of scoundrel bloggers, the links below have been cultivated, nay, curated, to strike a balance between intriguing and applicable. Enjoy!

Experiate Blog: How to make the store employee care
How does digital signage content affect the rank and file? Are they left apathetic or motivated? Paul Flanigan explores this topic, drawing on his experience with one of America’s largest minimum-wage employers, Best Buy.

Sociological images: A historical look at the changes in work type
In 1850, over 50% of U.S. workers were farmers. Today? Barely over 1%. Meanwhile, office-related jobs have grown from nearly nothing to being the dominant form of employment. If you like demographics, be sure to check out this interactive graphic.

Gartner: 2009 Hype Cycle Special Report
Still kicking yourself for missing the boat on the World Wide Web? Well, there’s still time to cash in on emerging technologies. But you’ll need a guide, like Gartner’s “Hype Cycle Special Report for 2009,” which indexes key technologies and trends, plotting them along a linear path through such territories as “Peak of Inflated Expectations,” “Trough of Disillusionment” and “Plateau of Productivity.” To wit: according to the recently released report, electronic paper is on the “Slope of Enlightenment,” which is to say that we’re past all the hype and the technology is nearly ready to offer some tangible business benefits.

Businessweek: Borrow from Home Depot’s “Free” Expertise Strategy
Since the publication of Chris Anderson’s book (Amazon | free on Scribd), there’s been a lot of chatter about the concept of “free.” Businessweek contributor Carmine Gallo describes Home Depot’s take on the concept: more than 100 short videos on YouTube, teaching you how to install fixtures and do home repairs. “When you don’t have a lot of money to spend on marketing, giving away free advice can help build your brand by establishing you as a trusted expert in your field,” he writes.

Wall Street Journal: Using the lottery effect to make people save
Jason Zweig uncovers an innovative financial product that comes from some credit unions in Michigan. These financial institutions are offering an account that is a “cross between a certificate of deposit and a raffle ticket.” The one-year CDs reward regular savers with a chance to win raffle prizes, up to $400, as well as a chance to win the grand prize: $100,000.

Michael Hiatt, president of Dynamic Retailing, LLC, and former director of WalMart’s in-store network, is working on a book about customer-facing technologies within the retail environment. It is due to be published in fall of 2010.

One of the guidelines Mike will cover in his book is what he calls the “5 As of digital content.” He has kindly allowed us to reprint them below:

Appropriate, Attractive, Affordable, Adaptable, Assembled

For digital signage content to be successful it must be appropriate. Customers should see relevant content on the screens — based on the right time, day, place, and location.

Content must be attractive. The brands that are participating want the content to look good, to be pleasing to the eye and ear. Customers have enough visual clutter in their lives.

Digital content should be appealing, not a distraction. Most retailers do not have the resources to create a network with both appropriate AND attractive content. Therefore it must also be affordable.

Retailers are not media companies. They sell products. A digital signage network cannot be a negative drag on their resources. The pressures of the first three A’s compel signage networks to ensure that the creative is adaptable. The content must be flexible enough to be used in a variety of ways and approaches while still being relevant. The only way to do this is by assembling content using technology. Retailers should look for technical solutions that can produce a wealth of sharp-looking, relevant content at a low cost. This is the future of digital signage content.

XPLANE, which calls itself “the visual thinking company,” has produced this entertaining and (no surprise) highly visual video that describes the enormous changes that are taking place in the worlds of media, marketing and technology. The video has a strong U.S. focus, but is still worth viewing for its creative visualization of statistics and factoids.

Did You Know 4.0

Another gem from the good folks at the NYT Freakanomics blog:

“According to the FBI’s recently released second quarter Bank Crime statistics, bank robbers are most likely to rob a bank between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. on Friday…”

Which has us thinking about potential deterrents and wondering whether it would be effective to run digital messaging during this time slot, specifically pointing out the bank’s security apparatus (guards, cameras, alarm systems, etc.)?

The idea would be to unnerve or plant seeds of doubt in the minds of would-be robbers, much as store greeters are used in retail stores to thwart would-be shoplifters.

Of course, hardened professionals might not be swayed, but that’s not who we’re concerned with. According to the U.S. Department of Justice in its guide (PDF) on bank robberies:

“most bank robberies are committed by solitary, unarmed and undisguised offenders (and) can be considered the work of amateurs rather than professionals.”

Creative Commons photo credit: secretlondon123

Via the NYT Freakonomics blog, we’ve stumbled onto a video by  that attempts to answer the question: “why do people use check cashing places, instead of banks?” Be forewarned, this video has some colorful language. But it is highly entertaining and actually provides a brief glimpse into the reality of the so-called “unbanked.”

Brandweek interviewed Carlos Boughton and Manuel Wernicky, two Hispanic-marketing experts in about what to do (and not to do) when it comes to marketing to your Hispanic customers. While the focus of the piece is on shopper marketing in particular, I think the lessons are relevant to just about any retail situation.

Of the two lists, the “don’t” list seems the strongest, so here are the highlights:

• Don’t rely too much on cold data to know your customer. Get out and spend time talking to brand users.
• Don’t underestimate consumers, particularly their ability to make or break your brand via user-generated content on the Internet.
• Don’t focus on cultural details or try to make your brand look Hispanic. Instead, focus on being relevant.
• Don’t try to be pan-Hispanic. (Example: Tecate, which is clearly Mexican but has an authentic voice and therefore has broader appeal.)

Read Hispanic Shopper Marketing Do’s and Don’ts

Jeffry Pilcher, editor of The Financial Brand, an online journal that covers financial services branding and marketing topics, recently interviewed John Ryan President Nancy Radermecher about the role of digital signage in bank marketing.

Read the interview

If you’re new to The Financial Brand, here are some recent articles that give you a sense for the depth of this online publication (I’d call it a blog, but it offers more meat than most blogs):

• Branches refuse to die

• Datahead: Brand more important than rates, products (Some great, presentation-worthy statistics in this post.)

• Notably Quotable: Anger, blame and dynamite

• Women vs. men: Two different perspectives on money

• Caja Navarra: Pioneers in Civic Banking

• Results 2.0: Social media for financial institutions

Behold, the lowly workhorse of the banking system, as it appears in numerous countries and environments across the globe. For a huge number of customers, this is as close to a bank as they’ll ever get. Hence, the efforts by banks to brand their ATMs. (The Wachovia ATMs below go beyond branding and take on a temple-like quality.)

What’s so interesting from a marketing perspective are the vast differences in equipment, screen sizes and environmental context from one ATM to the next. With so many variables, how is it possible to influence, much less control, the customer experience at this touchpoint? There are plenty more photos where these came from. Please leave a comment if you’d like to see more.

Spain
Creative commons photo credit: Stripy T-Shirt

Chicago, Illinois, USA
Creative commons photo credit: Manufacturer

Kansas City, Missouri, USA
Creative commons photo credit: Pat Hawks

New York, New York, USA
Creative commons photo credit: dandeluca

New York, New York, USA
Creative commons photo credit: davidwg

Jerusalem, Israel
Creative commons photo credit: mockstar

Rhyolite, Nevada, U.S.A.
Creative commons photo credit: Nevada Tumbleweed

Yazd, Iran
Creative commons photo credit: Paul Keller

Jönköping, Sweden
Creative commons photo credit: Wrote

Tokyo, Japan
Creative commons photo credit: saschapohflepp

California, U.S.A.
Creative commons photo credit: TheTruthAbout…

Brussels, Belgium
Creative commons photo credit: Photocapy

Singapore
Creative commons photo credit: Abhishek_Kumar

Doha, Qatar
Creative commons photo credit: whiteafrican