Few bank marketers will tell you price is the most important selling point, yet that’s precisely what gets marketed online, says NAB chief marketing officer Howard Silby.
Speaking alongside a panel of his peers at last week’s CMO forum, Silby argued most financial services marketing is still “very Web 1.0”. “It’s department store type marketing – there’s a lot of display or banner advertising, and that actually reinforces the point that you can easily price shop online.”
Silby says: “What the industry hasn’t cracked is a genuinely interesting or differentiated brand experience online”.
He was responding to comments from Mark Buckman, the marketer behind the Commonwealth Bank’s controversial Goodby Silverstein-produced TV campaign.
Buckman argued industry thinking has gone beyond “Web point two” to what he labeled “Web point three”: “So using things like artificial intelligence and contextual searching to actually build a more dynamic experience for customers.”
Silby was not convinced, telling Buckman “I really have no idea what Web 3.0 or ‘point three’ is, so I’m looking forward to Mark telling me about that.”
I’m inclined to agree with Silby. There are very few examples of Australian banks embracing Web 2.0 tools for marketing purposes, and most that do exist are the work of institutions other than the Big Four.
The Commonwealth Bank’s local business banking community is a step in the right direction, but a far cry from what the bank could produce if it devoted more time and money to Web 2.0 initiatives.
ANZ’s head of cards marketing Paul Riley agrees bank marketers should be thinking about how to move away from discussing price online. “I think the ability to talk about your brand online, outside of price, will give some banks more of an advantage in the future.”
Silby says one way to do this is with more involvement in communities that are discussing financial services online. “There are not really any great examples here, but there are in the US. Wesabe is an interesting one.”
Wesabe is yet to determine whether it will offer contextual search alongside its discussion groups – to date it has avoided any form of advertising.
It seems just a matter of time before an Australian entrepreneur meets the challenge of combining product and price information with consumer generated content and discussion groups that banks can participate in.
What do you think?
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