December 28^th, 2005

Introducing Brian M. Porter's Rant-o-Rama ...

STRENGTH AT YOUR OWN PACE

I hardly ever walk into banks any more. I'm more interested in using their online services, simply because it's more convenient. Banks like to encourage that, too, because it means they can lay off more tellers (you know, the army of people they were already paying minimum wage to anyhow ...) and thus maximize their already obscene profit margins.

But every now and then I do have to enter a bank, usually waiting for my wife, and I always come across these posters about GICs or brochures about investing "for the future" and all this advertising has some standard features:

— Pictures of faces smiling at you that seem to have absolutely nothing to do with the subject of the brochure/poster/booklet, etc.

— Large-lettered and differently-coloured phrases that, at first glance, sort of describe the text that follows (and then, upon further inspection reveal themselves to be just as meaningless as the smiling faces).

— Considering the word-count, very little in the way of useful content.

 

I first took a good long look at these posters, brochures, etc. while I was waiting for someone to finish in the bank a few years ago. Out of sheer boredom I picked up a brochure trying to flog some sort of credit card. I looked at all the faces and the format and sneered derisively. "What the fuck does that smiling person have to do with a credit card?" I muttered to myself in knee-jerk reaction. After all, I knew the answer was Absolutely Nothing. But what I didn't count on is that there may be an effect on the person looking at the brochure. The fact that it got me agitated is an excellent barometer that it will sucker -er- draw in other people. (My feelings work that way: If I get pissed off by it, it will probably have some success as a marketing tool; ever wonder why I didn't go into Marketynge?) And, let's be frank, with the kind of money banks haul in every year, you can expect that an absolute tonne of research and thinking went into the smiling happy faces. Banks wouldn't keep doing it year after year if there wasn't a demonstrable return on investment, would they?

CHALLENGE YOUR SPIRIT OF IMAGINATION

 

YOUR FUTURE YOUR WAY

Well, to be fair and honest, there is a good chance that banks' advertising in their brochures, posters, etc. has absolutely no effect at all. I heard a junior sales type person once tell me (with a straight face), "You only get a 50% return on every sales dollar ... but you don't know which 50%, so you have to spend it all." Huh? How does that work? But: I am a mere mortal who is interested in making sense of technical things such as programming interfaces, proprietary software languages, system administration guides, and development handbooks. Who am I to question the minds of the marketeers and sales reps who come up with such arguments about the money spent on advertising? Heck, I don't even drive a Beemer; what could I possibly know about it?

 

There is one other thing I have noticed about banks and, for the first time in recorded history, I am going to express my 51% approval of something they do. It is simply this: They show a conservative (small "c" please note) streak when it comes to adopting new and different approaches to performing their business. They are, in short, not early adopters of anything. For example: When computers were clearly shown to benefit the banking experience—and even the bottom line—they were still slow to bring them into common business practices. Then, once those systems were in place, they were highly resistant to adopting new and innovative systems, favouring their old tried-and-true methods until it was painful to not adapt. As another example I posit: Their irritating brochures and posters might fall into the same category as computers (above). Maybe years ago a study was conducted that showed the smiling happy faces and people enjoying their leisure time was the biggest hook to improving peoples' ideas about how wonderful life was when you used banking services. But maybe that is no longer true, yet the banks are uninterested in changing this approach. It worked in the past, damnit, and until it is painful to stay the way they are, they aren't giving up. And, besides, maybe reading their own booklets makes them feel good :-)

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