Westpac (Australian Bank) indicates that online marketing is not for it, because brand experience is not driven online.  When I started to read this article I misread it as a bank that doesn’t get it, but reading on, I feel quite the opposite.  Westpac understand the (Internet) medium well as it applies to big banks.

The Better Banking Blog: Why Westpac won’t be spending more online

Westpac says three things drive customer satisfaction – customer experience (around 50 per cent), products – their functionality and pricing (around 20 per cent), and brand perception (around 30 per cent).

(Note:  this description of loyalty drivers is consistent with others I have seen.  What I find interesting, is the “customer experience”.  How that is defined is key.)

TV remains king to achieve the brand perception..

Dua says: “Online marketers are yet to convince me that I can run an effective brand campaign online.” When it comes to getting an “emotional connection” with customers, he says it’s TV advertising, not online advertising, that delivers.
…
Tim Pethick, brand custodian of online super company Max Super says too many companies fail to deliver an “emotional payback” to consumers on their websites.

“The place that consumers will go first and foremost and most often when they want to engage with a product or a brand today is the web.”

Then reading deeper, the logic is one that I support.  What they are really saying is that traditional marketing does not work online.

When it comes to customer experience, if we set aside the discussion about why brand perception is more important than products, it’s the online channel that’s delivering for Westpac.

More than 95 per cent of customers are satisfied with the experience they’re receiving online, compared to 88 per cent for branches.

…..

Dua says: “Online marketers are yet to convince me that I can run an effective brand campaign online.” When it comes to getting an “emotional connection” with customers, he says it’s TV advertising, not online advertising, that delivers.

Tim Pethick, brand custodian of online super company Max Super says too many companies fail to deliver an “emotional payback” to consumers on their websites.

The fundamental rationale is that whle on the web customers display different characteristics than they do in other media.  The web is not TV.

“The place that consumers will go first and foremost and most often when they want to engage with a product or a brand today is the web.”

Pethick says today’s time-poor, knowledgeable, and somewhat distrustful consumer no longer wants to be bombarded with one-way advertising messages.

Relevance to Bankwatch:
Marketing online has to be relevant to the user.  Traditional brand marketing doesn’t work online, ie ads purely for brand’s sake.

Technorati Tags: marketing, customer+experience