We were at the Agency the other day, working on a campaign, and the classic quote came from the general manager of the agency.

“the creative deck for the print stuff was two pages;   the creative deck for the web site is 40 pages”

Implicit in this statement is a different way to approach bank marketing.  The reason it came up, apart from the obvious number of pages, is the granular thinking in consumer terms only rises to the surface when you begin to consider how millions of people will react to the web pages you place in front of them.  Yes millions – the beauty of the web is that everyone sees everything right away.  The typical online banker visits their bank site 7 – 9 times each month on average.  So within a week, 60 – 80% of your customer base has seen your message and reacted.  If the reaction is good, and the “calls to action” are right, then all is well.  If there are disconnects or its unclear, then your call centre will be bombarded and the internet channel group will be highly unpopular.

Incidentally, this is not intended to be cynical, merely representative of how things work at most banks until they “get it”.  As the internet channel group at your bank, and decide for yourself which “way” you operate under.  Bottom line, is that the second way employs more thought up front and internet becomes a catalyst for thinking like a customer.
Old way

• creative brief for the offer to agency (default is direct mail, print)
• agency comes back with general positioning, high level is fine – a few nice bullets on value
• everyone buys in
• delegate to junior people, and have them and agency work on paper media and advertising
• remember internet – last minute effort to develop pages & tools to support the campaign
• go back to product group to clarify customer disconnects and dissatisfiers
• probably refine the internet tool post implementation based on the new information discovered late in the project

New way

• creative brief for the offer for defined channels, online, paper and newspaper, with priority to understand internet first
• agency returns with questions to understand which customers, which segments, questions, questions,  Talks about how there isn’t adequate detail to define this offer online.  That high level “bullet” is not supported by the detailed product description
• iterative discussion, about the value proposition until it is crisp
• delegate and implement on the defined channels