Reprogramming Financial Services Marketing

As described by leading financial marketing site The Financial Brand (TFB)—which hailed Dexia’s dual-pronged strategy as “two of the most innovative things you may ever see in financial services marketing”—clicking on one of the banner ads took visitors to a microsite where they could vote for their favorite band. The winner then got to perform live at one of Belgium’s biggest concert halls, with live streaming on an Axion Web-TV channel; additional media support included e-mails, advertising on MTV and posters in music stores, CD shops, bars and restaurants.⁷
The results of the award-winning program were music to the bank’s ears. Among the highlights: 6,807,442 banner impressions on well-known Internet sites and 44,845 unique visitors to the campaign’s microsite.⁸

In TFB’s view, the Axion example could be a stage-setter for the future. “What Axion is doing is quite different: unique products, promotions and educational resources exclusively targeted to a narrow audience segment and marketed under a separate stand-alone bank brand.” Continuing, the site writes that, “By 2020, the retail financial landscape could be littered with hundreds—if not thousands—of these micro-niche banks. A big bank that may be struggling to serve everyone today could be completely transformed into a collection of successful sub-brands 10–20 years from now. Instead of one corporate website, think ‘many different websites,’ all with different styles and different products.”⁹

Echoes of ESPN, Discovery, MTV and other cable brands with their multiple content offshoots from the core brand? As the following examples of social media-led financial marketing show, “micro-niche” just may be the way forward.