The title of this article Weird Offline Promotions, is not meant to be a negative. Weird marketing can be effective if it helps people remember your product in a positive light.
For online banking, it can be difficult to create offline promotions that drive people to your website. ING Direct is one company that has pulled it off. Both with their offline cafes in four U.S. cities and their innovative promotions blitzes when they kick off a city-wide awareness campaign. For example, in Washington D.C. they showed up one day at the Metro subway and paid for everyone's morning commute. It was expensive, but the publicity was enormous.
New Ideas
- Here's one we'd never thought of, free parking for your clients. Apparently Lexus dealers in Georgia and southern Florida have pooled their money and arranged for the first 200 Lexus drivers to get preferred parking at Atlanta's Turner Field and Sunrise, Florida's Office Depot Center. Drivers still pay the going rate, but get the best spots. (Reference: BusinessWeek, July 18, 2005, p. 16). It may make more sense for a car dealer than an online bank, but you could tie it in to your auto lending program or some other VIP program.
- Another auto-related effort that's been going on for several years is HSBC's Bank Cab promotion in New York City (click on thumbnail below to see an archived copy of the HSBC Bank Cab website from May 2004). In 2003 and 2004 the bank sponsored several promotions that included two distinct red-and-white Checker cabs that roamed NYC providing free rides to HSBC customers who could present a current HSBC ATM card. Again, there isn't a direct correlation to online banking, but your ad agency could probably think of some good ideas along the lines of convenience (easy banking, easy rides) or free rides (free rides, free online bill pay), and so on.
We'll continue this discussion in future articles.
--JB