One of the biggest gatherings of digital influencers, commentators and practitioners descended upon Adtech Sydney last week. A healthy mix of keynote presentations, workshops and networking – the event was clearly the digital event of the year.
Despite a sizeable reduction in numbers at last year’s event, the insecurities caused by the GFC appeared to be lifting in spring like fashion this year, with delegates and participants feeling much more positive about the whole area of digital and its pivotal role in leading business performance, whatever side of the client/agency/vendor table you are.
Unilever and HP CMOs were more than happy to tell all to packed auditoriums in intimate detail, oblivious to the Twittering, blogging and iPhone video recording their every word. In fact the speakers may have felt that they were participating in something big (if not a little cool) but even the smoothest of presenters could not really have been prepared for the rawness of the live tweets – played back to them live on stage. The new rules of conference participation are a long way from polite applause, casual questions and a one way presentation!
One group of marketers I didn’t expect to be quite so optimistic was the Australian Banking community. But despite their recent challenges and of course, reasonably clear bill of health, four of Australia’s major banking brands were well represented in a ‘Track 3’ panel presentation. Senior Digital execs from Citi, Ubank (a new direct bank from NAB), Commonwealth Bank and Suncorp all took part in the Unexplored Pioneers session, designed to explain how the financial services industry in Australia have ‘shaped and influenced the digital media space’.
Despite the start of 45 minute session lacking a clear agenda, it was clear all of the panellists felt comfortable in each other’s presence under the Chairmanship of the jovial Michael Weeding from Citi. Although one couldn’t help but wonder how much information these banking titans were really going to be prepared to offer up, given the competitive nature of their industry.
My scepticism was soon blown away with UBank, one of Australia’s newest banking brands, and its Head of Online, Monty Hamilton, leading the charge to explain the integral role that social media plays in their marketing and operational strategy. Clearly less encumbered by the other larger banks, UBank had the enviable task of discussing their successful ‘challenger’ approach, led by an impressive social media strategy.
As a direct bank lacking a branch network, UBank started the discussion off by outlining how they have ensured that in some way “Social media and networking platforms help to compensate for the lack of face to face engagement”. In fact UBank now receive a regular stream of between 50-100 service and product enquires each week most, surprisingly, described as “positive exchanges”.
Monty did go on to explain that the nature of their operation and the strong support from senior management had made the use of Twitter and face book easier to integrate – with even the CEO helping to grow the followers to 2,400 and 4,600 respectively.
These numbers were presented with little reference to his competitors but when you compare a new brand like UBank to the global might of Shell and it’s 3,600 Twitter followers, it highlights the sound judgement of the Ubank team to “be where our customers are and want them to be”. In fact Hamilton went on to explain that the growing need for banks to engage customers in the most appropriate channel for them rather than avoid it.
It was also interesting to hear UBank talk about their use of Skype which was nicely framed in the whole “enabling conversations across platforms” with Monty highlighting the positive reaction that customers have when they are able to communicate this way at any time of day or night. Again the other larger banks seemed to noticeably look on in envy.
Ubank’s positive start clearly set the discussion bench mark high but with Harry Lowes, an ex-wine marketing executive, jumping in to discuss how he is leading the digital charge for CBA we quickly jumped to the larger side of town. In fact everything about CBA is big, branch network, number of customers, the list goes on…but Harry kicked off by outlining that their biggest challenge was ensuring that digital operations and communications were “adding value to customers rather than simply about having a presence.”
Clearly a bank with ambition, Harry was quick to show a very glossy 2013 vision for the bank in the form of a video designed to showcase where they see things progressing.
Harry Lowe was quick to highlight the key contributing factors to the bank’s digital strategy if only to avoid cynical questions from an already vocal audience about a rather fanciful video…
Harry’s main points were:
1 Customisation
Ensuring that content is customised for a number of different touch points.
2 Always on internet
Meeting the needs of a constantly connected customer
3 Cross platform functionality
Customers don’t just operate in one environment, so the bank can’t either.
4 Centralised financial management
How we can the bank remain relevant and meet the needs to customers
5 Community
The growing trend for customers to seek and share opinion and information regarding their financial situation within a range of communities
Despite such an ambitious vision, Harry was the first to admit that one of the biggest challenges (and this was very much supported by the rest of the panel) was the need to have a single customer view in their CRM systems. This was something that Michael Weeding at Citi echoed and despite the obvious need, they also had this at the top of their priorities. Despite their enthusiasm none of them said anything that made me feel this was something that would happen soon. So while the central use of the banks data was seen as a medium term focus for their IT teams, it certainly held an immediate marketing requirement.
The one area that all of their teams were very much focused on was defining the role of social media, and finding a way to compete with their more nimble financial services competitors. Maybe the fact that CBA have hired a Head of Social Media is a sign of how seriously they are taking it.
There was a word of warning however from many of the participants at the event who operate in the corporate space that interaction with customers on social networking platforms was a long term investment and not just a need to fulfil a trend. An opinion also strongly supported in another session with the Telstra Director of Relationship Marketing, who only see themselves ‘touching the surface’ with social media today and expect it to have huge influence on their business in years to come.
Murray Howe of Suncorp briefly commented on their “cautious approach to social media given the Queensland approach to community and a strong branch network”, choosing to connect with customers at a branch level.
Murray then took the discussion in another direction, choosing to highlight Suncorp’s successful use of search. Suncorp’s investment and volumes in this area reflects three key areas:
1. Consumer behaviour
1/3 of their customers engage online, 1/3 buy online, 40% of their online sales come via search for insurance products.
2. Accountability
3. Competitive pressure
The last point was illustrated by Murray revealing that he has seen a 300% increase in competitive use of search in 2009, resulting in Suncorp competing to a level that now sees them as one of the top 20 spenders in search in Australia.
SunCorp have recently centralised their search spend across the portfolios of banking, insurance and wealth products to create greater buying power. With one agency handling a lot of automated work to introduce the development of dynamic landing pages to reduce cost , speed to market and overall effectiveness.
Murray wrapped up by emphasising Suncorp’s focus on relevancy over creativity, a contraversal point of view but one that the others seemed to understand but not necessarily agree with across the board.
Overall this was a very informative session and it’s not often that you get given access to the inner sanctum of bank marketing in such a comprehensive way, I just wonder if CBA will front up next year to give an accurate assessment of where they have got to in achieving their ‘hyped’ 2013 vision?
Author: Matt Scott, DraftFCB
Checking in, and uploading this post using my iphone WordPress app. This is kinda cool I must say to be able to be anywhere to start a conversation. This week I have been travelling and thus using my mobile and associated communication applications to a high degree. I have also been following the South by Southwest (SXSW) interactive, film, and music festivals and conferences that are taking place in Austin, Texas right now and held each and every year in March.
Last year it was 
