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 [...]

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.” [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

São Paulo, Brazil
Creative commons photo credit: EduardoZ

New York
Creative commons photo credit: TheTruthAbout…

Singapore
Creative commons photo credit: HongKong dear Edward

London (formerly Midland Bank, now an art gallery)
Creative commons photo credit: stevecadman

Valencia, Spain
Creative commons photo credit: Toni Rodrigo

Ise, Mie, Japan
Creative commons photo credit: pelican

Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A. (recently converted to a hotel)
Creative [...]