‘On-brand banking’: An examination of the factors contributing to effective branding and brand development through direct marketing in the consumer financial services sector

The services sector now accounts for more than two-thirds of GNP in the UK and yet much of the work on branding is based on fast-moving consumer goods. This paper presents key factors for effective brand and brand loyalty building in financial services direct marketing and examines why these success factors may be missing from most financial services direct mail. The issues are examined here from a direct marketing (DM) agency and DM brand experts' perspective. Key objectives for successful branding in financial services direct marketing emerge. Barriers believed to be preventing the consumer financial services sector from using the direct marketing medium to its full brand-building potential are reported and recommendations are made for overcoming some of these problems.     

The potential impact of new technology and European mail deregulation on financial services marketers

This paper identifies the problems and opportunities presented to financial services marketers by European mail deregulation and the advent of new document technology in 2003. It explains the theory and current reality of mail deregulation in the UK and explains the timetable for its introduction. It goes on to explore the opportunities deregulation will create for more targeted direct marketing and even one-to-one marketing through new services and technology. It concludes that the financial services companies that utilise these new opportunities earliest to meet the needs of their customers will benefit most in both brand and net revenue terms.     

Stock options as a means of adding value in business markets: A powerful potential communication vehicle for business marketing managers

In this paper, the authors argue that stock options are a highly effective marketing communications (marcoms) medium, which due to their influence on the profitability of the organisation, possess characteristics that should be included in strategic marketing planning for financial and non-financial organisations. This study aims to test whether stock options can be used as a means for marketing strategists to build effective branding and loyalty programmes.It is argued that the strategic role of stock options in marketing decision making adds value in business markets. Stock options play a unique role in marketing and in the achievement of corporate goals and targets. The study is supported by the findings of a questionnaire survey based on a sample of Greek companies, grouped into two categories. The first category consists of the most profitable organisations supplying business markets, listed on the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) and the second consists of large financial organisations.     

Grasping the direct marketing advantage

This paper describes why financial services companies are uniquely placed to use direct marketing and how they need to overcome a number of issues in order to maximise its potential. It weighs up practical limitations such as the Data Protection Act and industry regulations as well as examining softer issues such as the drawbacks of a traditional financial services culture and the need to protect credibility through maintaining sufficient levels of customer confidentiality and trust. A discussion of practical recommendations and how they can be best implemented explores possible solutions to the challenges.     

Addressing Financial Inclusion Challenges in Rural Areas from the Financial Services Marketing Employee Emotional Labor Dimension: Evidence from Nigeria

Financial authorities basically regard low financial literacy rate and poor information and communication technology as the major challenges facing financial inclusion drive, particularly among rural dwellers in Nigeria. No study has assessed the cause of low financial inclusion from the financial services marketers’ emotional labor perspective. This quantitative study attempted to close this gap by exploring how emotional labor variables relate to financial services sales performance and job satisfaction among bank marketers. Primary data were collected from 417 bank marketers operating in Edo and Delta States. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to test the formulated hypotheses. The outcomes show that surface acting has a significant negative effect on financial service sales outcomes and job satisfaction, while deep acting was found to have a significant positive effect on financial service sales outcomes and job satisfaction among bank marketers.

     

Building a Bridge between Marketing and Finance

Corporate finance executives are often frustrated by spending proposals from their marketing colleagues but cannot seem to be able to quantify the putative benefits. Similarly, the marketing staff is frustrated by the finance team's inability to convert soft marketing metrics, such as “awareness” and “customer satisfaction” into financial forecasts. The challenge is that neither marketers nor finance executives have been able to articulate a single analytical framework which both explains how and why brands come to flourish or flounder and how brand growth contributes to the business's short and long term bottom line. Lacking an effective way to do this now, most managers default to using the hard data they do have, namely how marketing investment is likely to impact sales this quarter and next. This reinforces the widespread focus on quarterly EPS and reduces the perceived value of the marketing department to their ability to hit three month sales targets. This degraded view of marketing's contribution and the inability to link “soft” marketing metrics to longer term financial returns impedes building long‐term brand value. This article focuses on how advances in behavioral science and financial analytics offer an effective way to bridge this gap between marketing and finance. Building that bridge requires better measures of brand health and financial performance to allocate capital and marketing resources. Undoubtedly, brand building is both an art and a science. But, the finance people can develop an evidence‐based framework explaining how some of the “softer” investments such as brand building, contribute to the value of the firm.     

An analysis of financial services brand marks

This study analyses brand mark clusters used by companies in the financial services categories of the Fortune 1000. The brand marks are assessed against the normative criteria for effective brand mark design found in the marketing literature. Despite the existence of several well-designed brand mark clusters within the sample, results show a low level of adherence to the normative criteria overall. A low proportion of the brand mark clusters exhibit symbols representative of brand benefits, integrative features such as interactive images, and benefit slogan taglines.     

Technology and financial services: Marketing in times of U-commerce

This article revisits and uses the so-called U-Commerce framework to challenge financial services marketing decision makers to consider reformulating marketing objectives in an age of ubiquitous technological networks. It outlines the 4 U’s of U-Commerce – ubiquity, universality, unison and uniqueness, and revisits the original framework used to conceptualize U-Commerce. Then it identifies and describes four broad marketing objectives that financial services marketers can strive for, including amplification, attenuation, contextualization and transcension. Four broad marketing strategies can be used to achieve these objectives, namely nexus marketing, sync marketing, immersion marketing and transcension marketing. Examples specific to financial services marketing are used to illustrate and discuss these strategies.     

Consideration sets for financial services brands

This study examines the extent of consumer information search and consideration of financial services brands. It uses data from two surveys of purchasing behavior. This study finds a surprisingly low level of consumer consideration, either by personal enquiry or via the internet. The most common consideration set comprised only one brand, and this was the case for both high-value and low-value services. The managerial implication is that services marketers should make brand salience a top priority, with the competitiveness of their offer not being the primary driver of sales. If a financial services brand is salient to a consumer, there is a very high chance they will purchase that brand, without extensive comparison of the merits of alternatives.     

Brand portfolio options for the UK retail banks

Following deregulation in the late 1980s, many financial service companies rapidly grew their product portfolios. Developing these extensive portfolios has raised complex issues for financial service companies regarding how the new products and services should be marketed and, in particular, how they should be branded. This paper seeks to identify the relevant issues concerning the marketing and branding of large portfolios of financial service products. Using the brand portfolio model developed by Aaker and Joachimsthaler,¹ the paper analyses the brand portfolio strategies adopted by the UK's leading retail banks (Barclays, Lloyds TSB, NatWest/RBS and HSBC). The paper concludes that given the complexity of branding as a concept and in predicting how consumers will respond, ultimately all financial services need to experiment more both with how individual brands are positioned and advertised and what portfolios are optimal.     

Mobile banking: A powerful new marketing and CRM tool for financial services companies all over Europe

In the last decade mobile handsets have become ubiquitous. There are three times as many mobile phone users as online PCs and they are becoming very sophisticated and demanding users. Increasingly they will expect real-time information and access 24 hours a day, seven days a week, wherever they are in the world — and they want very high levels of service. This paper looks at how and why financial organisations across Europe are beginning to take advantage of mobile services and in particular mobile banking as a powerful new marketing tool to build long-lasting and mutually rewarding relationships with new and existing customers. Examples show how European financial organisations are using mobile banking to improve their customer service and relationships, to reinforce their brand by literally placing it in their customer's pocket and to reduce their costs.     

Branding and relationships: Customer and supplier perspectives

This paper explores and investigates the role of branding within financial services. Specifically, the study aims to assess the importance of branding and its associated elements including brand image and brand experience in the relationships that exist between consumers and their financial brands. It aims to achieve this through research, which identifies gaps between the managerial and consumer perspectives on branding in relationships in retail financial services. It is well established that the characteristics of services are different from those of manufactured goods and that service personnel play a central role in the services experience. Moreover, the concept of relationship marketing within services proclaims the importance of one-to-one relationships between businesses and customers as well as relationships between consumers and their brands. Drawing from the fields of brand management, relationship marketing and services marketing, this research aims to investigate the perceptional differences between consumers and suppliers in relation to the importance of branding in financial service relationships. The research findings indicate that brand experience appears to be far more salient than brand image in shaping and building meaningful and lasting brand perceptions and promoting customer retention.     

工商银行实施品牌战略提高核心竞争力研究

品牌战略是企业通过品牌栽体提高企业核心竞争力所采取的一系列手段和策略的总和,需要从品牌定位、品牌规划、品牌营销、品牌维护和品牌文化5个方面来具体实施.国际金融机构以明确的品牌定位统领战略的实施、自上而下合理确定品牌规划、开展各具特色的品牌营销、以"关系"为导向进行品牌维护、把品牌文化寓于科学高效的人力资源政策中.工商银行要强化品牌定位,凸显品牌核心价值;加强品牌规划建设,建立统一的品牌管理体系;开展全方位营销,灵活运用各种营销手段;及时维护品牌关系,加强品牌保护意识;以企业文化塑造品牌文化,以品牌文化实现品牌可持续.     

Independent financial adviser (IFA)-based brand equity pyramid

This paper aims to evaluate the applicability of the existing brand equity pyramid models in the context of independent financial advisers (IFAs) in the UK financial services sector. Nine in-depth interviews with IFAs and nine in-depth corroboration interviews with senior marketing managers and employees in one of the UK’s largest financial services providers were undertaken for the purpose of the study. The findings indicate that when applied in the context of IFAs, the existing brand equity pyramid models require modification. These findings lead to the development of an IFA-based brand equity pyramid. The new model can provide insight for financial services marketing academics and practitioners on how IFAs perceive and evaluate financial services brands to be recommended to their customers. Our findings will help financial services providers to develop strong brands in the mind of IFAs.

     

An approach for the identification of cross-sell and up-sell opportunities using a financial services customer database

The collection, management and manipulation of customer data are key to the successful operation of many relationship marketing and customer relationship management endeavours. To make effective use of the data, however, requires that organisations know how to analyse it in order to generate valuable information for marketing purposes. One of the key challenges to maintaining an ongoing relationship with customers is to be able to predict what products customers will need to buy next and at what point so that appropriate marketing offers can be made. This paper illustrates an analytical approach that can be used in such a situation. Using actual customer data from a financial institution, the paper illustrates the application of segmentation analysis, purchase acquisition trees and survival analysis. While the results are of particular interest to financial institutions, the methodology has applicability in a number of contexts where customer data are available.     

Strengthening the link between marketing strategy and financial performance

From the perspective that integrates marketing and banking practice and theory, this work reaffirms the relevance of interactions between the issues of ‘what’ (marketing strategy) and ‘why’ (financial performance). The key finding is that the marketing strategy–financial performance link faces serious difficulties, but they do not inevitably prevent the promotion and greater acceptance of the basic idea. The strongest barriers include negative attitudes of marketers to the language of financial indicators, different paradigms of people from marketing and banking, insufficient presence of the key concepts in the basic literature and unrealistic requirements of academic models. On the other side, the demand that becomes more powerful and sophisticated, and intensifying competition, are the major drivers of positive changes in practice and theory. Greater respect for risk indicators, improved short-term/long-term balance, stronger integration of marketing strategy elements, as well as more realistic general frameworks, constitute the group of encouraging trends.     

Rising to the challenge: A model of contest performance

Contests are a ubiquitous form of promotion widely adopted by financial services advertisers, yet, paradoxically, academic research on them is conspicuous in its absence. This work addresses this gap by developing a model of contest engagement and performance. Using motivation theory, factors that drive participant engagement are modeled, and engagement's effect on experience and marketing success of the contest specified. Measures of contest performance, in-contest engagement and post-contest enduring interest are included. From the model, propositions are developed. Overall, the model provides financial service marketers with a theory-based foundation for designing and operating successful contests.     

The research vendor selection process: A quantitative decision matrix for increasing value for both buyers and sellers

This paper provides a real life example of the importance of the research vendor selection process within an organisation that is transforming its focus towards a customer-centric approach through an increased understanding of customers and consumers and the use of research for segmentation. The authors have developed a ‘Vendor Selection Matrix’ which quantitatively weighs and measures potential vendors against key criteria for successful research and segmentation. This matrix was used on a consulting project with a Canadian-based financial services organisation. Valuable insights and ideas for marketing executives, managers and professionals, the market research community and marketers of financial services products are provided. The paper finishes with the key lessons learnt throughout the market research vendor selection process, industry applicability and implications for further research.     

Internal branding experiences in the financial services sector in South Africa

There is little doubt that employees are critical to the delivery of the service brand. Although existing models propose methods of internal branding, very little is known about the actual corporate experience. Academics around the world have spent decades probing internal marketing, its subset—internal branding—and the impact of internal branding on service delivery. This research focuses on how organisations execute internal branding, revealing critical success factors as well as obstacles encountered. The research was conducted in five large organisations in the financial services sector in South Africa. Each organisation is a highly recognisable consumer brand; the oldest of which is nearing 200 years of being in business and the youngest is just 20 years old. This research adds to the body of knowledge regarding organisational practice of internal branding. Key themes are identified, three of which are largely absent from extant models and literature.     

Rising to the challenge: A model of contest performance

Contests are a ubiquitous form of promotion widely adopted by financial services advertisers, yet, paradoxically, academic research on them is conspicuous in its absence. This work addresses this gap by developing a model of contest engagement and performance. Using motivation theory, factors that drive participant engagement are modeled, and engagement's effect on experience and marketing success of the contest specified. Measures of contest performance, in-contest engagement and post-contest enduring interest are included. From the model, propositions are developed. Overall, the model provides financial service marketers with a theory-based foundation for designing and operating successful contests.