Alternative marketing thinking

Some companies will go right around a negative customer situation and turn it positive. Kuwait has no residential mail system, so marketing via direct channels poses a challenge. But one company saw this as an opportunity to connect with customers in unique ways. Gulf Bank knows that almost all its banking customers in Kuwait use ATMs, so it created a personalized marketing strategy to communicate via the machines. (Specifics here in the issue of 1to1 Weekly ). Another bank, HSBC Mexico, also does something similar at its ATMs. The important thing here is that Gulf Bank took what looked like a roadblock to customer service and interaction, and created an entirely new marketing channel. And unlike most direct mail, it’s a channel that customers actually pay attention to. A little creative thinking about the customer experience and business objectives goes a long way.

The Royal Bank of Canada has started a unique web portal to help students learn about money management, through video and text blogs by six chosen bloggers. RBC p2p claims to be a place where students can voice their own thoughts about the kind of banking they really need and want. The six bloggers are a mix of university students, aged between 19 to 29 years, right from all the way in Saskatchewan to British Columbia. A good thing would be to link up this blog to more student-popular social websites like Facebook, MySpace and others. We think that Twitter updates on what students are discovering would also revolutionize it and make it more interactive, something that students would actually talk about even when they are not using it.

Microsoft is to launch a global brand, called Microsoft Advertising, to house all its advertising-related operations. The new brand, unveiled at Microsoft’s advance08 advertiser and publisher recently, aims to simplify the increasingly complex range of advertising businesses that the software giant runs. Microsoft Advertising will bring together diverse ad-related offerings such as the $6.1bn aQuantive acquisition with the its existing ad delivery platform AdCenter, as well as in-game advertising firm Massive and mobile ad operation ScreenTonic. More from The Guardian.

The Women’s Initiative for Self Employment Bank, started in September 2006 decided not to take any loans as funding. The founders of the bank put in their own savings to give loans with an interest rate of only 1 per cent. Today, this bank has 128 account holders who have benefited tremendously and have become financially secure. The bank runs on a no profit-no loss model and has no fancy ATMs or furniture, actually not even a building. Whether it is money to buy a buffalo or to set up a food stall, WISE Bank give loans not more than a few thousand rupees and helps change lives. Read about this initiative here. And also on the new SME blog we discovered.

Planning to make a Facebook app for your client, wait until you have checked out this bit from Shelly Farnham. While the full report is paid only, some of the key findings are available for free. Including “reviewing the dominant types of applications, it is clear that most of the applications are helping users achieve social goals such as improved communication, learning about the self relative to others, finding similar others, improving self-presentation, engaging in social play, and engaging in social exchanges via gifts and media.” Read more.

We love new, new things and we will continue to report on the changes that are happening in the space of contactless payments. Especially when you hear facts like how, by adopting contactless, establishments will be able to reduce wait times by up to 40%. This one is from Europe on how many vendors are jostling to become the preferred choice of banks, mobile phone operators and of course the consumers. Payez Mobile (French only site, sorry), seems to be getting ahead of the race, especially in France. Read more.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has uploaded an educational video on its website about identity theft and how not to be an online victim. The detailed presentation covers brief introductions to identity theft, electronic scams, information and computer protection and help for victims. Also, one can also know what steps to take to lessen the damages if victimized. The FDIC preserves and promotes public confidence in the U.S. financial system by insuring deposits in banks and thrift institutions for at least $100,000; by identifying, monitoring and addressing risks to the deposit insurance funds; and by limiting the effect on the economy and the financial system when a bank or thrift institution fails. Watch the presentation video here.

Steve Rubel out at Micropersuation has an interesting post on three digital models of the next five years. The article was carried in Adage too, but you can read the whole thing on his blog. His three - Advertiser supported advertising, a-la Bud TV, an online TV channel for Bud adverts. Advertiser subsidized devices, like a set top box that brings in an additional channel that is supported by the sponsor of the box. Just in time advertising. Like what is currently possible on Yahoo.

Last week when Ratan Tata unveiled the 1 lakh Rupee Nano, the world gasped. When everyone expected a tinny little contraption that would be nothing more than a modified autorickshaw, the Nano is now being touted as the one that could flip the auto industry upside down. But wait, if you thought the Nano was cheap, wait till you hear what Shai Agassi is doing. His Project Better Place is about building a low cost electric car and giving it away free, hoping to make money from selling electricity to run the car.

Don’t laugh, at current oil prices the cost of the average used car in Europe is cheaper than the cost of gasoline to drive it for a year. Shai thinks his project can be built around famed business model that razor blade companies have used for decades. Give the razor away for free and the price of blades should earn enough.

It’s not just Shai Agassi who is thinking free. Wired’s Chris “Long Tail” Anderson is in the midst of writing a book on how free will change the world. New words like Freemium will soon enter boardrooms as businesses start to look at giving things away for free and then find ways to make profits.

Chris Anderson has many examples of how free works. Historically media has always been free, newspapers and magazines were given away free or at a notional cost, hoping to gain readers, to then earn money through advertising. Ryan Air, and many new European airlines, now sell tickets for as little as 10$ and yet make healthy profits. By redefining what business they’re in. They’re not selling seats, they’re selling transportation. They sell hotel and rental car reservations to passengers. They sell tourists to the smaller cities the carriers serve (the payment is in the form of the huge discounts they get on landing fees). They sell cargo shipment to the companies that put packages in the hold (which is why these carriers tend to charge extra for baggage). They even make money off the food and drink they sell on board.

Kevin Kelly in his seminal 1998 book ‘New Rules For the New Economy’ has devoted an entire chapter Follow The Free, where he outlines how many things that cost money to produce could actually be given away free. He says “Because prices move inexorably toward the free, the best move in the network economy is to anticipate this cheapness.”

Some of the biggest viral hits of recent times subvert the 90-10 rule of media versus production, and using free media placements on sites like YouTube to get their messages across for free. Ideas like Still Free and Diesel Heidies took advantage of cheapness of the network economy to become sensations. Here is a list of some 60 sites that can help you seed a viral video media plan for free. There are hundreds more out there that the econsultant list does not mention.

Brands like Audi have started running TV channels online since the cost of doing so has become free or almost negligible. Many smaller brands are using the net economy to reach out to larger audiences.

As we move more aggressively into a world where things relentlessly move towards free or low cost, there will be a premium on one thing. The ideas that will make these concepts stand out. In a world of a billion options, the ideas that make a few of them shine out will be the ones behind which many people will put their money.

Adage reports: In the latest of several studies showing surprising power for digital marketing among package-goods brands, more than two-thirds of consumers who use the internet have used it to research package-goods products, according to a new survey by Prospectiv, a firm that provides online customer leads for marketers. Consumers are turning to e-newsletters, search, branded sites to learn about products. More here.