**Event is cancelled**
8 NOVEMBER 2016 @ M HOTEL SINGAPORE
@14:00 – 17:00
Price: 199 SGD (includes coffee break)
Hando Sinisalu is marketing journalist, researcher conference speaker and producer. He is the founder and CEO of Best Marketing International, the leading marketing conferences producer in Europe. Hando has produced and managed over 200 conferences in 24 countries, he has experience in both content creation and event/business management. Hando collects and analyses digital marketing case studies which are being published on Bestofglobaldigital.com website. He is the producer of The Best of Global Digital Marketing Show, author of “The Best of Global Digital Marketing: Storybook 1” and “Storybook 2”, and editor of IAB Europe´s Digital Advertising Yearbook DAY 2013. Hando has MA degree in Communications from Ohio University (USA).
Best Marketing International
American Express joined the social media scene in 2009 with the aim of providing customer service for cardholders. Ever since, American Express has been bringing their A-game across every major social media channel. We’re not talking plain presence and scheduled engaging pics of cute kitty cats wishing you a lovely weekend. Digital became a part of AmEx’s corporate culture, binding the whole financial experience into one outstanding package. We embarked on a small investigation across AmEx’s social feeds and here’s what we found out:
GREAT VISUALS PAIRED WITH A STRONG INSIGHT
American Express knows mighty well how to attract those double taps on social. Instagram has become AmEx’s fastest growing platform and there’s a good reason for it. Turns out pics of credit cards have more social-appeal than mouth-watering food close-ups. Despite the security issue, people love posting pictures of their AmEx cards. Tapping into this insight has given the brand a strong visual handwriting across their social channels. An ongoing collaboration with international artists provides a steady stream of gorgeous visuals, attracting a sizeable chunk of likes.
A simple credit card is visually more appealing than this deliciousness…amazing
HUMAN(E) INTERACTION
Customers’ needs should be the top priority for every brand. Instead of pushing their own products, AmEx stands for the ‘’top-down’ and builds its audience by addressing the problems they’re having. The brands awesome customer support comes across humane and genuine, as well as being quick and efficient (as demonstrated above). Apart from delivering a great service, AmEx’s humane approach is also noticeable in their day-to-day content. Pictures of real card members attract significantly more likes and shares than JAY Z concert ticket offers. Go figure…
ENGAGING WITH THE UP&COMING GENERATION
Millennials might not be the highest earning audience just yet, but this too shall change. And American Express has been smart enough to address this up&coming generation early on. Their ‘’Everyday Congrats’’ campaign featuring Tina Fey is a great example of cheeky humorous content. Adulting might be hard, but having a good chuckle and an AmEx card in your back pocket can make it a bit easier for you.
Coming up soon: a closer look at Barclays’ social media ventures. Stay tuned.
Curious for more? Join us at our Afternoon Seminar in Singapore!
Best Marketing International
Kotak Mahindra Bank is the fourth largest Indian private sector bank. Kotak Mahindra Bank has over 641 branches and over 1,159 ATMs at 363 locations across India. The brand carries an AA+ rating and is valued at approximately half a million dollars.
The banking industry has been slow to react to changes regarding digitalisation and the demands of the up and coming “Generation Y”. “Gen Y” have completely different expectations when it comes to banking. They expect seamless digital solutions, with an integrated social component as this is a natural part of their lives. However, banks are underestimating this audience and social is still approached with a very sceptical point-of-view.
BACKGROUND
BANKS FACING GEN Y
Banking is changing. In many parts of the world, banks have more or less adjusted to the internet and mobile environment. However social media is generally an exception to this. Gen Y comprises one-quarter to one-third of the population in many markets, and they will be shaping the future of all businesses. However it seems some Banks yet do not consider Gen Y as an important target audience.
Capgemini and Efma have produced a report, part of which tackles this phenomenon (World Retail Banking Report 2014). For the first time in 3 years, the gap between customer expectations and the delivery of social banking services has negatively impacted customer experience ratings. According to the report, Gen Y customers are frustrated that most banks only allow them to do basic research via social channels.
90% of the banks surveyed provided (or plan to provide) basic information and customer service capabilities via social media. BUT only 32% offer some form of ‘collaboration functionality’ with 51% planning to do so.
FIRST ATTEMPTS IN SOCIAL BANKING
According to the same study, at least 10% of customers are currently interacting with banks on social media at least once a week. Some banks have already embarked on the road towards offering full social media banking. It seems likely that these banks will have a big advantage in attracting customers in the near future.
A few examples of these ‘social media banking pioneers’: Turkish Deniz-Bank became the first to open a Facebook branch, Commonwealth Bank of Australia extended their Kaching product app to Facebook, Royal Bank of Canada became the first North American institution to support P2P payments between Facebook friends. But no bank had so far incorporated Twitter…
THE SOLUTION
SETTING UP A SOCIAL BANKING ACCOUNT
In India, Kotak Mahindra Bank was the first to turn towards Twitter. Agency IBS contacted Twitter’s local team. They recorded no trace of another brand using Twitter as a banking platform. This was the start of a strong collaboration. Jifi from Kotak Mahindra Bank is a first-of-its-kind fully integrated social bank account designed for the socially connected generation. Jifi integrates social media platforms Twitter and Facebook with mainstream banking facilities, allowing users to access on-the-go information. Users can open and operate a Jifi account by signing up via Facebook or email in order to receive an invitation.
THE OFFER
The Jifi account offers the ability to transact via social media platforms, social loyalty points for inviting friends/liking, commenting on Facebook, free one-year subscription and much more. And of course Jifi customers have access to all the normal banking services.
The Kotak Mahindra Bank provides customers with a list of hashtags to carry out banking transactions and to receive updates instantly to their Twitter Account (#JifiBal, Last 3 Transactions-#JifiTxn, etc.). Account updates can be received on Twitter as a Direct Message by simply tweeting to the Twitter account @KotakJifi. The bank’s dedicated Twitter account @kotaksync will send out the relevant messages.
SOCIAL POINTS FOR SHARING
Jifi customers can earn social loyalty points for inviting and adding friends to the Jifi network and also by liking/commenting on Kotak’s Facebook content. Sabyasachi Mitter, Managing Director at IBS, describes the program: “We thought of using Kotak Jifi customers for spreading the brand – acquire new customers organically. To start off, we created something called Social Loyalty. Once the person has signed up for Kotak Jifi, he/she can share the bank’s content with friends. Points are earned for all these social actions. The points can be exchanged for discount vouchers and passes to special Bank events. This has proven to be extremely successful. We haven’t run any paid media to acquire a single customer. I believe this is quite unique.”
SECURITY
For some, the biggest barrier on the way to social media banking is the lack of clear regulations and security issues. The agency was asked whether they’d experienced any problems with security and what type of preventative measures were taken in advance.
“Up until now, we haven’t experienced any issues with fraud. We encourage users to communicate via direct message, not public tweets. Any information from the bank is also sent only through direct messaging. There are a few other securities put in place. The bank’s messages are deleted automatically after a certain period of time. Thus, the hacker can’t access historical info. You can only direct message your followers, with the exception of the bank. Currently we’re trying to add some more measures to make it even safer,” says Sabyasachi Mitter from IBS.
LOYALTY PROGRAM
Some brands have attempted to incorporate ‘social loyalty’ into their marketing activity, but this hasn’t really taken off. Banks are naturally unwilling to convert ‘social points’ into cash rewards, because the customer hasn’t spent any money to acquire these points. Therefore, they prefer to stick to their established transactional loyalty programs.
CUSTOMER DATA
Customer data is another important issue when it comes to social media. Facebook owns the rights to all its user data. Brands are largely ignorant about their fans’ profiles. But Kotak wanted access to the customer data. Here’s how the problem was solved: “The program we constructed directed people to the bank’s website, where they had to enter some contact details and validate their account. It seems natural because you’re basically signing up for a bank account. Facebook and Twitter profiles are linked to the bank account. As a result, the bank has all the necessary information about these customers.”
WORKING WITH FACEBOOK AND TWITTER
Both Facebook and Twitter impose restrictions on brands ‘doing business’ on their site. Today, it’s no secret that organic reach for Facebook posts is extremely low (and in some cases zero). But in this case, Facebook India was supportive and according to IBS, there will be announcements soon about several banking innovations using Facebook’s platform. Both Twitter and Facebook have openly announced that as long as a brand is building a utility for users and connects with them on their terms, they will be very supportive.
“I personally support Facebook’s initiative regarding the organic reach. Unpaid ads will not get reach. Facebook is supposed to be an engagement media, but many brands have converted them into spam advertising media. It’s just a big amount of low quality content thrown at people. Between December and January, the Facebook organic reach for most of our clients has actually gone up. There are more opportunities for those who genuinely create good content. They can rely on some organic reach even today,” explains Sabyasachi Mitter.
RESULTS
Kotak Jifi is currently available for resident Indians in select locations. The account can be accessed from anywhere in the world. Kotak Mahindra believes that in the next three to five years, 30-50% of their new account openings will happen through this social initiative.
Kotak Jifi relies heavily on Twitter’s platform, which makes patenting impossible. Indeed IBS is currently in the process of implementing this solution for other banks (including banks in the Middle East and Singapore).
SURPRISING USER PROFILES
Looking at social banking, the first assumption would be that the customers are all young people. But it turns out, it’s not so black and white. Sabyasachi Mitter shares his positive discovery: “We started with the same assumption. While largely it has been a young customer, we’ve still had some surprises. The person carrying the maximum amount of social points is a 64-year-old professional. He collected so many points that we ran out of vouchers. Of course India is a very young country, but we did attract a large number of older users. We tried to figure out why this was happening. It turns out Twitter is the preferred media for slightly older people in India. So in the end, we had a healthy mix corresponding to the population of India.”
KEY LEARNING
THE FUTURE LIES IN OMNICHANNEL
It is clear that “Gen Y” is driving the key developments in banking innovations. They expect fast digital solutions and banks can no longer ignore their demands. Services need to be combined into a fluid “omnichannel” solution, with all elements working like a well-conducted orchestra. They seem to be dragging older customers along with them.
Sabyasachi’s thoughts: “We tend to get caught in the idea that there’s only a single way to address a problem. Kotak already had a mobile app, but there were still people who preferred to engage through a non-mobile app media. I’m not sure how it will go for us in the Middle-East, but there has been a lot of interest from other markets. People need to be open to providing innovative service through multiple media. Rather than just relying on a mobile app.”
OFFERING AN ATTRACTIVE LOYALTY PROGRAM
Jifi’s loyalty points programme encourages users to interact with the bank’s content and drives a constant flow of new customers. The truth is – banks negotiate rewards with merchants, who in most cases are actually paying for them. The viral effect provides good ROI results for the bank. Investing into social points proves to be less costly than other means of acquiring new customers. Kotak managed to build an attractive loyalty program which actually works (unlike some others in financial services!).
“We spent a lot of time on trying to source exclusive deals that would make social points attractive for users. Kotak also created special events, which could only be accessed for social points. To prove the point: in Kotak Jifi you can actually convert your transactional points to social points. And many people have done that, which to me, seems really interesting,” explains Sabyasachi.
APPS VS SOCIAL BANKING
Many banks have jumped on the mobile app bandwagon. These ventures have had mixed results. Kotak Jifi ran on native platforms, meaning no additional download was required. It would appear that this is an optimal solution, so which should banks consider? We asked Sabyasachi about the pros and cons of different types of banking apps: “Mobile banking apps are more secure and always just a tap away. But in India, not everyone has a smartphone. The penetration for such apps would be quite low (around 20%). Thus many brands are looking towards native apps instead. While a lot of brands have mobile apps, but what they actually do with these apps is a big question and something to work on. Here in India, banks are sending the same offers. You can use the data from apps to construct personalised offers and communication. This is going to differentiate banks who ‘are social’ from banks who are really using social.”
CASE STUDY VIDEO
EXPERT OPINION
GAMZE GURBUZATIK
JWT INTERNATIONAL, CLIENT SERVICES DIRECTOR (TURKEY)
“We all want our consumers to talk about our brands in social media to add more visibility and earned media for our brand, however it is not so easy to do that, especially in a world where more consumers are using social media to complain about the brands they are using. The use of gamification of Kotak Jifi, almost similar to getting miles or extra thank-you points, is really clever.”
ANZ’s ‘SMART GIRLS — EQUAL FUTURE’ by TBWA Melbourne (Australia)
ING’s ‘THE NEXT REMBRANDT’ by J. WALTER THOMPSON Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
ITAU Bank’s ‘KIDSBOOK COLLECTION’ by Africa (Brazil)
J&T Bank’s ‘PLAYDOWJONES’ by WIKTOR Leo Burnett (Slovak Republic)
Curious for more? Join us at our Afternoon Seminar in Singapore!
Best Marketing International
Here is the hand picked TOP 5 of most watched YouTube videos from banking & financial services sector in 2016.
1. Going Up: Fast Forward – GEICO – 46,544 million views
2. Gas – Low Balance Alerts from Wells Fargo – 14,764 million views
3. Nationwide’s One Up – 12,781 million views
4. Citi: Renova Energia. Um Brasil movido a energia
11,142 million views
5. TMB Digital Banking – 8,087 million views
We gave our best effort to combine such list, however, as it is fully ‘handmade’, using Google & YouTube search, there might be some videos left out.
**Event is cancelled**
M Hotel Singapore
81 Anson Road
Singapore 079908
Maarja Laasu
Conference Producer
Best Marketing International
maarja@best-marketing.com
www.bestofglobaldigital.com
