Showing posts with label Financial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Financial. Show all posts

12.10.09

Marketing on $700 a Year



Last month, Intuit, the personal finance software firm that owns Quicken, paid $170 million in cash for Mint.com, a two-year-old personal finance site with 1.6 million users. That corporate embrace comes after much frustration on Intuit’s part. At one point the company wrote Mint a letter demanding “substantiation and evidence” of the rival site’s rapid-fire growth. Compounding the vexation was the cost of acquisition for those consumers, whose numbers are currently growing by more than 130,000 each month: virtually nothing.

Donna Wells, Mint’s CMO and a former exec at Intuit, is a veteran marketer used to the big media budgets she had in previous jobs at Charles Schwab and American Express. At Mint, however, she may well represent a new breed of CMO who is spending very little on brand building and bypassing advertising in the process. Thanks to new social media and communications technologies, partnered with adept PR strategies, Wells showed that building a so-called Web 2.5 brand doesn’t need to cost much these days—and the experience is liberating.

“We built this brand on the cheap. In two full years at Mint, I spent what I would have spent in two days at Expedia,” laughed Wells, who was previously svp-marketing at the travel site. “Mint was my fourth startup, and the tools that are available to me now, even since my last startup in 2000, offer amazing reach and adoption through places like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and iPhone apps. It’s a phenomenal time for a marketer.”

Mint’s start kicked off with a well-read, popular blog—launched in March before the site’s product launch in September 2007—and key exposure when Mint launched at TechCrunch 40 and won top honors. Wells created a Facebook page where Mint now has more than 36,000 fans and attracted a following of 19,000 on Twitter. Free applications like WordPress power Mint’s blog while another free tool, the user-friendly Google analytics, lets staffers track site traffic. Mint does pay for some other off-the-shelf services for its site, spending all of $700 a year.

Wells estimates the marketing costs at Mint over the past two years to be around $2 million. That amount primarily includes salaries for the marketing staff which now numbers five, including herself, and out-of-pocket expenses like hiring an outside PR agency. She also experimented with search initially, spending about $50,000.

“The idea that you need a huge amount in marketing and advertising dollars is simply not true,” said Laura Ries, president, Roswell, Ga., consultants Ries & Ries. “That was a major fallacy in the dot-com boom where companies went out and spent millions and got no benefit. Companies like eBay and Amazon did it by being first at something, by standing for something and having a credible strong idea that generated the PR and word of mouth necessary to get into the minds of consumers.”

As a free money management tool, Mint obviously has a compelling appeal in the current economic climate. But Ries also noted the site’s quirky name and compelling blog, which in a world of forgettable corporate blogs won the award for best blog at the Online Media Marketing and Advertising awards last month. That communiqué reinforces an identifiable voice with the brand that initially attracted 20 and 30-somethings, Ries said, particularly in contrast to the older-skewing Quicken, with a less-defined image given the number or products associated with the brand.

Wells admits she will modify her marketing strategies as Mint goes more mainstream under Intuit but, even with new financial resources, vows to keep using the cheap tools that launched the brand and keep nontraditional media at marketing core.

Other creators of recent popular Web 2.5 brands share Wells’ reluctance to spend on advertising—and it’s not because they don’t have the money. Pandora.com founder Tim Westergren said his four-year-old Internet radio site expects to bring in $40 million in revenues this year, more than double that in 2008. But while he spent “maybe $100,000” on search in Pandora’s early days, he’s not interested in traditional marketing. Instead, he’s focused on customer service and bonding, no easy feat given the 35 million U.S. registered listeners to Pandora’s automated music recommendations. Westergren, a musician and composer, said a primary focus of the site’s marketing, and a major expense for the site, is a team of eight people who respond to every listener inquiry. In a busy month, Pandora’s “listener advocates”’ might deal with 30,000 e-mails, with topics ranging from new site features and new bands to complaints. Additionally, Westergren travels around the country talking to listeners at “town halls” held in coffee shops, community centers and bookstores. (He’s not just interested in what urban hipsters have to say—upcoming trips take him to places like Sioux City, Iowa, and Billings, Mont.) He said that while that might sound “old school,” it’s critical.

“Each town hall includes just a small number of listeners, obviously, but it’s a p
owerful cementing tool. They become ambassadors for you,” said Westergren, who cautioned about the need to take in the bad with the good. “In this day and age, it just takes a few enthusiastic people to do some damage to you on the Web; there are so many ways to evangelize.”

For his part, David Karp, the 23-year-old Internet entrepreneur who founded short-form blogging platform Tumblr, said more traditional marketing communications couldn’t achieve what his own team could do in viral product design at the nearly two-year-old site.

 “We did an experiment with outside PR, but we found people couldn’t explain it as well as we could,” he says. “The marketing is all on Tumblr’s site. We thought, ‘What features can we build, what design changes? How can we get visitors to further engage and share the experience?’ We always looked at the product as inherently viral and designed it that way. As it becomes more social with the Tumblr dashboard (which quickly lets users add other users to lists of friends), you can follow friends, publish and repost.”

 Last week, Jinni.com, a Pandora-like recommendation service for movies and TV, launched in public beta. The site’s co-founder, Yosi Glick, who’s clocked in time as a marketer at tech companies like Orca Interactive, said his lack of interest in advertising the new site strikes some acquaintances as odd. “‘How do you do zero-dollar marketing?’ People from the b-to-b environment find that intriguing,” he said. “Is it possible, they ask? It is indeed possible.”

Glick’s optimism about grassroots marketing may be premature. Still, sites like Jinni, along with Tumblr and Pandora, have all the advantages that accompany marketers who are the first in their categories. It’s a lot harder for others who later jump in and play catch up to the pioneers.

But even those companies with a head start like Amazon and eBay ended up using traditional advertising once they became dominant players and needed to protect their leadership status. So while marketers like Wells have launched successful sites on a dime, their experiences may still be the exception, not the rule. Advertising will remain a critical marketing support at launch—and thereafter, some observers contend.

“In general, you need more than one tool to launch and maintain a brand,” contended Allen Adamson, managing director of the New York office of Landor Associates. “If you’re the third one out there (in a category), you’re going to need more. Successfully doing it on a shoestring is not an average situation—it’s more like winning a lottery ticket.” 

22.9.09

Aviva car insurance:::


Aviva wanted to engage consumers when they would be in the right frame of mind to think about car insurance. The obvious solution was to target motorists when they were actually on the road, so the insurer decided to advertise with In Your Space.

In Your Space displays advertising on the sides and back of its trucks. According to the media owner, 64% of motor vehicle traffic is via motorways and major A-roads, which are covered by its moving billboards. It recently carried out a £70,000, 12-month long research programme to provide the likes of Aviva with specific targets.

Aviva’s campaign is running on a total of 210 ad sites - termed as ‘high reach billboards’. The lorries carrying the ads will cover more than one million miles of road. If estimates prove correct, the campaign will communicate to over 24 million motorists every month, with each motorist expected to see the adverts at least 7 times, delivering a total of 508 million impacts over the three-month campaign period.

With TV advertising overloaded with insurance companies, it makes sense for a car insurance firm such as Aviva to move its advertising into a more relevant space for its target market, although the environmental impact of such advertising may concern insurance customers in the future.

BRAND: Aviva car insurance

BRAND OWNER: Aviva

CATEGORY: Automotive

REGION: UK

DATE: Aug 2009 - Oct 2009

AGENCY: AMV/OMD

OTHER AGENCIES:Posterscope

MEDIA OWNER: In your space

MEDIA CHANNEL

Out of Home

5.9.09

HSBC: Phone banking

HSBC Phone Banking. Bank anytime

Advertising Agency: PomatoAsia, Jakarta, Indonesia
Creative Directors: Herman Tan, Andri Kong
Art Director: Dedi Setiawan
Copywriter: Herman Tan
Photographer: Widarto Adi
Published: July 2009

16.8.09

Rightmove:::App proves right move



Property website Rightmove wanted a way to further engage the increasing number of mobile users accessing its website. Its solution was to create an iPhone app providing real-time information about properties in the neighbourhood the customer is searching.

Rightmove currently receives over 40,000 iphone visitors to its site each month, accounting for around 95% of its mobile traffic. Creating an iPhone app was the next logical step in continuing to add value for these consumers.

The app uses real-time GPS technology, allowing users to find nearby properties available to buy or rent. It provides a variety of information, including address details, price, agent details and pictures. Details of interesting properties can easily be forwarded to friends and there is immediate access to the agent through a "Call Me" button.

The house-hunting app is the first of its kind, and helps cement Rightmove’s status as the UK’s number 1 property website.








BRAND: Rightmove

BRAND OWNER :Rightmove PLC

CATEGORY: Corporate

REGION : UK

DATE :Aug 2009 - Dec 2009

Agency: Ogilvy

MEDIA CHANNEL

Mobile or Internet


7.8.09

AVIVA | "Life's Little Drama" commercials

Client: AVIVA
Agency: AMV BBDO, London
Production Company: Outsider
Director(s): Henry Littlechild
Creatives: Simon Chaudoir (DoP)
Diane Leaver (Creatives)
Si Rice (Creative)
Adam Rudd (Editor)
Yvonne Chalkley (Agency Producer)
Country: United Kingdom

5.8.09

Momentum Insurance |Seconds

Client: Momentum
Agency: Draft FCB Cape Town
Production Company: Velocity Cape Town
Country::South Africa
Post Production: Left Post Facility company: Black Ginger
Music: Mad Planet

31.7.09

DEVK: Set theory

devk12320

devk12319

devk12318

At first glance, our diagrams look quite straightforward. But when people look closer, these graphs tell funny and interesting real-life stories. Stories that show your target group why it’s always better to be insured by the DEVK.

Advertising Agency: Grabarz & Partner, Hamburg, Germany

30.7.09

Alfa Insurance | Let’s Talk About Tomorrow

alfaletstalk.jpg

Alfa Insurance - "Transformation" :60






Client:Alfa Insurance
Agency:Lewis Communications, Birmingham
Production Company: FORM
Director(s):KEVIN DONOVAN
Creatives: Final Cut, New York (Post production)
Music: Copilot Music, New York
Sound Mix: Brooks Audio, Birmingham
Country:United States of America

24.7.09

Coldwell Banker:::Billboard house-hunting

US-based estate agent Coldwell Banker wanted to demonstrate the brand’s investment in innovation and the fact that it welcomes consumers any time, anywhere.

The company has a long track-record of embracing new technologies to sell its wares, and its latest endeavour is no different. The brand has taken over a billboard in Times Square, New York, to showcase some of the houses it has for sale. But there's a twist: the interactive billboard will display homes from requested post codes in real time. Passers by just text the word “homes” and any post code to a number on the billboard and a range of three houses appears in three different price ranges. They also receive a text from Coldwell Banker directing them to a link with more information about the listings.

The campaign also features portraits of the company’s founders, Colbert Coldwell and Benjamin Arthur Banker, who started the company in 1906. The founder portraits offer witty comments about New York and modern-day technology, mirroring the commentary they provide in related TV spots.

BRAND:Coldwell Banker

CATEGORY:Corporate

REGION:USA

DATE:Jul 2009 - Aug 2009

Agency:FD Kinesis





16.7.09

Axion:::Banner concerts


o increase its appeal to youngsters in Belgium, Axion, Delta’s youth bank, decided to run a competition for up-and-coming bands. The idea being that by assisting young people in an activity they are passionate about – music; they could be encouraged to bank with Axion.

And with the international music industry struggling to survive, it seemed an ideal time for Axion to give financial and logistical assistance to young people to help them achieve their goals.

Axion Banner Concerts streamed live gigs in the frame of traditional banners. A media plan was booked on popular websites, and 25 young bands competed to play an exclusive gig at Ancienne Belgique, one of Belgium’s biggest concert halls. A voting system was installed to select the winner.

In total the gigs were screened through 6,807,442 banner impressions. An embed option on the banners generated another 40,000 impressions via viral embeddings on fan pages and blogs – some of these generated more than 20% click-through. The campaign website attracted 44,845 unique visitors with 7,581 voting for their favourite band.
















BRAND:Axion

BRAND OWNER:Delta

CATEGORY:Financial

REGION:Belgium

DATE:Apr 2009

Agency:Boondoggle

MEDIA CHANNEL

Mobile or Internet

25.4.09

Western Union::: Rural movie project

BRAND OWNER:Western Union
CATEGORY:Financial
REGION:China
DATE:Jul 2008 - Oct 2008
Western Union’s money transfer service relies on brand awareness but also brand familiarity to drive usage.

Consumers need to trust Western Union to use the service.
In China a key target was people living in villages around tier 3 and 4 cities who tend to be older with lower educational attainment.
Reaching these consumers is hard because there are few targeted media options, printed materials may not be effective or understood and they are also conservative when it comes to testing new services.
The key way to earn their trust, however, is recommendation from family and friends and the communications solution was to create a family event in their villages and use the occasion to personally explain the Western Union service.
It created a tailor-made event in 95 different locations, promoted via posters, offering villagers the chance to see a relatively recent movie.
Before each screening a 10-minute video about Western Union was played with representatives on the ground also giving out leaflets and one to one explanations.
The event was totally branded with Western Union yellow stools, banners, event and leaflets.
Research carried out after the event showed nearly everyone questioned said they would try Western Union products for future transfers. The activity is being expanded for 2009.

24.4.09

MasterCard::: Priceless in Brazil

BRAND OWNER:MasterCard
CATEGORY:Financial
REGION:Brazil
DATE:Apr 2008 - Dec 2008


In Brazil, people have developed their own interpretations of what it means for an experience to be “Priceless" independent of MasterCard’s landmark campaign.

Many Brazilians' personal expressions of moments so special one cannot put a price tag on them were already online in video and blog-posting form. MasterCard could not ignore the opportunity to marry the pre-existing affinity for this concept to a whole new level of affection for the credit card brand.
Brazilians are the most active social networkers in the world: 76% percent have an online profile and 56% manage their profiles daily.
MasterCard’s goal was to move its “Priceless” concept forward using user-generated content (UGC) and social networking capabilities.
It launched a central site (http://www.naotempreco.com.br/) inviting Brazilians to share real events from their lives. The winning submissions were taken on as TV spots, with many others used on cable TV, magazines, newspapers and online.
MasterCard teamed with the SBT variety show “Domingo Legal”—the most popular Sunday TV program in Brazil—to feature viewers’ “Priceless” moments. One-minute “Priceless” segments were showcased on AXN and Sony cable channels, which offer the highest penetration for MasterCard’s upscale target audience. Viral networks, search engines and social networks were also engaged.
This was the first time any financial services company in Brazil had ever attempted to use UGC in a marketing initiative. Some 63,000 “Priceless” ideas were submitted via http://www.naotempreco.com.br/. The site had 36 million page views.

18.4.09

American Express:::Members Project

BRAND OWNER:American Express
CATEGORY:Financial
REGION:USA
DATE:Mar 2008 - Nov 2008


The American Express Card was struggling to maintain its uniqueness in a flooded credit card category. Its competitors were also beginning to target a more affluent customer – Amex’s traditional target. American Express needed to differentiate itself and establish new relevance with today’s consumers in sensitive economic times.

Amex decided that what made it unique was the community of card members, which it decided to activate to make ‘the value of belonging’ central to American Express’s core value proposition.
Digitas identified a strong “sense of purpose and moral integrity” among American Express Card-members. Members Project had launched in 2007 to allow Amex cardholders to channel donations to specific charitably causes. MP ’08 saw those who participated the previous year contacted at a grassroots level and then activated via social media. They were invited to submit their project ideas and use a wide range of promotional tools, including Facebook pages, project widgets, HTML emails, IM techniques and video to rally support for their favourite projects.
Having submitted their cause ideas they were hosted on a powerful Web 2.0 platform and voting was encouraged by the project owners themselves, promoting their entries and buoyed by paid media tied to milestone voting dates. The winning causes received up to $2.5m from American Express.
The social and self-promotional elements of the communications strategy increased organic visitation and engagement with MembersProject.com over 500% from previous year. Participants in MP ’08 were also more than 5 times as likely to socially promote the program compared to previous American Express marketing efforts that did not contain an appeal to the collective power of Membership.

Hapoalim::: Wedding direct

BRAND OWNER :Hapoalim Bank
CATEGORY :Financial
REGION :Israel
DATE :Nov 2008 - Dec 2008


Setting up a new home is an expensive business and it’s top of mind when young couples get married.

Ha’Poalim Mortgage Bank identified weddings as a key moment in which to reach out to this potential target market.
It created a special product designed to appeal to newlyweds, offering a competitive rate, the ability to take a payment holiday and no penalties for early redemption.
The bank then sent out dozens of representatives to weddings across the country to spread the joyful news.
Taking advantage of the tradition of putting cash or cheques in envelopes into gift boxes, it posted a congratulations card, an Ikea gift voucher and an invitation to meet with the Ha’Poalim mortgage team to discuss the special mortgage package.
On the evening of the wedding when families were noting the generosity of family and friends they would discover the gift from Ha’Poalim as well as a personally signed card from their representative wishing them future happiness.


For eight weeks representatives targeted hundreds of weddings in the Tel Aviv area on Thursdays – the traditional day for weddings.
Twenty-five percent of the couples approached called to set up a meeting, and many more came into bank branches. Ha’Poalim will be targeting weddings again in 2009.

11.4.09

Sovereign – Leaders in Life

Category: Consumer Services
Advertiser: Sovereign
Campaign: Leaders in Life
SUMMARY
Declining brand health was becoming a direct threat to Sovereign's continued success.
The challenge was to re-introduce Sovereign to New Zealanders in a way that would establish a brand identity beyond the Independent Financial Advisers, and engage an audience in a category they would rather ignore.

The strategy positioned Sovereign in the context of major 'life events' to best convey the emotional freedom the brand offers and encourage consumers to embrace life insurance rather than fear it. All brand health measures quickly recovered to exceed the targets set. Preference improved by 122% to reach 8.2%. This resulted in a dramatic rise in call centre leads, a greatly improved rate of conversion and delivered an increase of $6.357 million in annual new business revenue.
It won TBWA/Tequila a Bronze EFFIE in Consumer Services.
MARKETING CHALLENGE
The Life Insurance market is driven by a combination of saliency, trust and professionalism – it is difficult to attract new business and retain existing policyholders if you are not 'on the map' in consumers' minds. Even small increases on brand health measures are hard to achieve in this market, reflective of consumers' low involvement and engagement with the category. As Sovereign had received no brand support over the past three years its market leader position was under threat.
The challenge was to re-introduce Sovereign to New Zealanders in a way that would establish a brand identity beyond the Independent Financial Advisers, and engage an audience in a category they would rather ignore and forget. The ultimate goal was to deliver business results in a highly competitive market, no mean feat given a share of voice of just 11% for the duration of the campaign.
CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES
The objective of the “leaders in Life” campaign was to:
  • Increase Sovereign's unprompted awareness from 13.7% to 15% (Target Market) and 8.6% to 10% (All Consumers)
  • Lift consideration from 3.1% (the industry low) to 5%
  • To recover preference levels amongst the Target Market from 3.7% to 6%
  • Amongst risk users who recall Sovereign advertising achieve relevance of at least 50%
  • Strengthen Sovereign's brand image associations on all key attributes notably:
    a)'An insurance company I respect'
    b)'Professional and competent'
Note: while these targets appear modest, they reflect the low life insurance category norms.
Business Objectives
  • Increase direct leads to the Sovereign call centre by 20% versus a year ago each month the campaign ran
  • Increase conversion rate from 20% to 25%
  • Deliver growth in retained business of 10%
TARGET AUDIENCE
The core target is aged between 25–54, supporting partners or young families with medium to high personal incomes ($30k+).
CREATIVE STRATEGY
The creative strategy expressed a universal truth that even though a loved one is no longer physically with us they are still looking out for us. It's memories that keep people alive, and the communications were to be a celebration of 'real' life and family memories.
The creative solution was to create simple, honest and direct pieces to camera – messages left for family members from a loved one who has passed. The communication depicted real life situations of family members expressing their love for their family. They were crafted to convey the satisfaction that comes from knowing that even though they may no longer be there to physically look after them, they have taken care of their family's future through a life insurance policy with Sovereign.

MEDIA STRATEGY
Media was focused on linking the communications to 'life events'.
MEDIA
Magazine
Press
Online
Event

TOTAL MEDIA EXPENDITURE:
$1 to $2 million

RESULTS

The campaign:

  • Raised awareness
  • Lifted brand perceptions
  • Resulted in business leads, higher conversion rates and major lift in revenue

Unprompted Brand Awareness


Monthly Leads

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