There are an incredible number of brands that have meaning to us. People will get in passionate arguments over which soda brand they prefer. Yet the entity that is at the financial heart of almost every one of our lives—our bank—rarely makes any kind of real attachment at all to us. From what we can tell, the only emotion that most people’s banks evoke in them is low-grade annoyance.
To us, this has always felt like an opportunity for an entrepreneur to jump into the category with a whole new approach. Particularly these days where the entire banking industry has got a lot of stink on it after nearly pulling us all down the rat hole with them.
Apparently some smart folks agree. They are starting a bank called BankSimple. It is in the concept stage now, but it strikes us as a pretty appealing concept. Here’s a quote from their blog:
How not to suck at bank marketing.
Apathy
You’d figure with over eight-thousand banks, America would be awash with competing strong brands. It isn’t. People aren’t passionate about their banks. Nor do they have any reason to be. Why bother switching to Bank of America when you could get the same thing from Citigroup?
To counter this apathy, banks take one of two main marketing approaches. They either try to sway you with rewards or position the bank as a lifestyle brand. We think this is absurd.
Is this an approach to banking people could get excited about? Or maybe banking just shouldn’t be exciting?
When you’re trying to project security, being different has gotta be an uphill battle.
Sounding exactly the same, acting exactly the same and picking a different shade of green unfortunately seems to be the solution to branding.
A little bravery could go a long way in this category.
I am really positive about my bank, ING Direct. I don’t know if I’d say I love it, but I’m definitely happy with them. The main thing they project to me that makes me feel good is that they’re just not going to screw me. No surprise fees, easy and fair insufficient funds policy, and easy access to my cash.
So much antipathy is generated by the banks because they just constantly seem to being screwing you, but hey, you need a bank so what are you going to do? Break that impression and I think you’ve got a winner.
Bill, I agree about ING. I have an account with them as well and in my eyes they have done a good job of having a simple, differentiated product as well as a likable personality. And I get the impression it has been very successful for them.
How much cash do I need before I get assigned a personal banker? I just want to pick up the phone, have it ring once, and then my personal banker says:
“Hey, Josh. How’s it going? Looks like that money keeps pouring into your account. Do you want to come dive into our Scrooge McDuck pit later? I’ll send a car.”
Actually, that would be a pretty sweet branding platform.
“Swim in our safe. Really. You’ve always wanted to.™”
As one who frequently jumps from bank to bank following promos (decent money for the time once you’ve done it a few times and know the ropes), I’ve seen a lot of banking marketing. Most of it does feel the same; however, I think the general idea of rewards makes sense — people like to get something for nothing. The real problem is that many banks like to pretend to offer you something when they’re really not (i.e., fees that quickly outweight the rewards). However, not all banks are like that. Kasasa (https://www.kasasa.com/) is a group that works with small, local banks to offer significant rewards programs. In doing so, they combine the rewards and lifestyle approaches in a way that actually works. For one thing, they use slam poetry in their marketing — that might not appeal to everyone, but it definitely sets them off from the crowd.
Among more mainstream banks, the two that I’ve seen do the best with backing up traditional marketing with real service and quality are ING Direct (already mentioned) and KeyBank. I’ve been very happy with both of those when I’ve used them.