Alternative marketing thinking

Yes, banks are jumping on to the design wagon. Barclays, for instance has just rolled out a new branch in Manchester post its makeover. This branch gives you the feeling that you’ve just waked into a high street store. Be it an illuminated globe with rolling film footage suspended above its entrance or a designated play area for children, Barclays claims to have “listened” to its customers and arrived at this design. The lady behind this makeover, Deanna Oppenheimer has experience in revamping retail banking previously too. While at Washington Mutual, after studying ways to draw customers to branches, she and her team came up with the Occasio concept. These branches did away with traditional tellers and their windows. They were replaced with khaki-clad “concierges” who direct people to where they need to go according to what the customers need. They may be directed to one of the “teller towers,” circular help desks where they can conduct their own business or talk to an employee, or may end up at one of the touch screen service areas where they can research products and services or at a computer that will help them conduct online banking. Or they could plunk themselves on one of the private chairs and tables set up so employees can meet with customers to discuss issues that require privacy. So why so much attention to branches when everyone’s doing all that they can with mobiles and the Internet? Because the most expensive of banking products, like investments and insurance are sold over the counter, we’re told. More here.

After bringing the Card Lab, Capital One Financial Corporation has now tied up with Flickr to bring the first ever Capital One Image Card. Customers can either choose pictures from Capital One’s gallery of images or upload one of their own. The company claims that personalization will help customers create cards that are distinctly them. Users have to follow a simple online procedure to get their own cards. Last November, Capital One launched the Capital One Card Lab which provides consumers with a new level of transparency and choice in credit cards. Customers are offered a series of interactive choices related to interest rate, annual fee and reward options, where they can click to select the combination of features that are most important to them. As choices are made, the tool narrows the options in the remaining categories, eliminating options that don’t work together. For example, consumers who are willing to pay an annual fee can earn rewards faster. So while banks are focussing on the many benefits that they think will attract customers, Capital One is probably doing something better by going on the creative track. Read what some bloggers are talking about the latest offering by Capital One here.

Danske Bank Sweden has grown their market share successfully by making branches the place to go for help on new products, rather than for transactions. Mats Torstendahl, CEO of the bank, spoke to Forrester about the bank’s efforts to stand out among many competitors and grow market share. Over the past ten years the bank has redefined its branch strategy to focus it on advice, rather than transactions. Over 65% of the bank’s customers perform transactions through e-banking, and are turning to the branches for face to face advice on their finances. Danske Bank is targeting entrepreneurial type people to manage their branches, and empower them to price products as needed — as long as they meet overall financial goals. They’ve also resized branches to be smaller and more boutique-like, placing them in less expensive real estate such as the second floor of buildings, and on the outskirts of cities, rather than in prime commercial space. Customers have embraced the new approach, preferring the better parking facilities in outlying areas, and the VIP feeling when they have to be ‘buzzed through’ the locked doors of branches. Read more on the Forrester Blog.

In the world of banking Jyske brings in a difference. When asked by management to double the number of retail customers, the marketing and product team decided to build a new kind of retail experience. Like Starbucks, which people call The Third Place, a place between home and work, Jyske is the third place in Denmark. Where they serve some very fine coffee for free. Anyone can walk into the bank, just like they could into a coffee shop, read papers, hang around, and maybe even check out some new products and services the bank offers. All the products that the bank sells is available in a packaged form, with a barcode that you scan on specially designed computers and the computer then shows you a small movie about the product and what it has to offer. Jyske not only managed to double its base, it also managed to get so much free press for its efforts that the bank’s awareness skyrocketed (see the Google trends graph here). Here’s a small video from AdAge that shows off the bank’s new point of view.

An innovation from closer home, Disha Financial Counselling under the Ageis of ICICI Bank and the RBI unveiled the first comic book on the basics of banking ‘Raju and the Money Tree’. The comic book was launched as part of RBI’s strategy to promote financial literacy in the country. The comic aims to educate the school children on importance of saving for future. With banks keen on penetrating into the rural hinterland, initiatives such as these will help them gain the trust and spread information in an informal and unusual way. Disha is planning to bring more comics on basic banking, on currency and the role of RBI as monetary authority. Also in the pipeline are comics on banking services for specific target group, such as women, defence personnel, senior citizens etc. Read the press release here. The Disha site is here. Another interesting intitative from Disha is a helpline for people suffering from credit woes.

The history of the world can be seen in the way currency has been designed. Some bank notes can tell tales of days gone by. Others educate people of the success achieved by a nation. Of their great leaders, scientists and more. So it is important that Germany’s Hypovereinsbank’s Banknote Collecting Foundation, G&D will be opening the doors of its banknote museum to the public for the first time. On display are some of the world’s rarest currency notes. 1,000 cash note from the Chinese Ming Dynasty from the time of the Great War of 1368-1398; one of the oldest banknotes in the world. The world’s rarest banknote: the only existing 100-mark note dated 1914 from the former colony of German New Guinea. More from the Hypovereinsbank’s press release.

Volkswagen got The Ice Box to make a life size ice sculpture of their Polo Twist model and parked it outside the Saatchi gallery in Belvedere. Coming chilled with free air conditioning, the Polo Twist enjoyed the surprise and sudden interest factors that come with innovative advertising.

Orgasm – For a better world. Real stories to garner real interest. Global Orgasm is an effort to make a change in the energy fields of the earth through the input of the largest possible surge of human energy.

Using cardboard, the primary source of shelter and warmth to millions of homeless urban people, artists create art to help get the underprivileged off the streets. Read more.

A nice little concept from Visa Europe, VisaSwap, a place to donate clothes and earn points. There are some new-age ideas in here, even though the site per se could have been a lot better. The swap store will be open only for a few days in every location it travels to. It is a great example of ethical consumption, as the site says over 900,000 million items of clothing are thrown away each year in the UK and even if a small portion of it could be recycled and not let them be dumped in landfills, it could make a positive impact. Making this happen is Visa’s tie up with Textile Recycling for Aid and International Development. Clothing that is donated to TRAID is sorted according to quality and style. The best quality clothing is sold back to the public in one of TRAID’s charity shops. Clothing that is torn or stained is reconstructed and redesigned into new one-off pieces. These are sold under the award-winning recycled fashion label, TRAIDremade. The money that TRAID raises through this operation is donated to overseas development projects in other parts of the world. The way Visa benefits from all this is that people who donate old clothes to TRAID get points debited to their Visa Cards while the company gets a large share of good word of mouth.