Permanent TSB - Network Rollout

As reported initially on Adrian Cotterill's "Daily DOOH," Permanent TSB, the retail banking arm of insurance giant Irish Life and Permanent PLC, has announced a nationwide rollout of digital signage to their 106 retail branches. Impressively the deployment, which had been rumored for some time and commenced near the end of September, will be completed by the end of this month.

Scant information has been shared with regard to Permanent's intent for the network, other than using the screens to communicate product information to customers on-hours, and to provide training to staff off-hours. Interestingly, however, the network will also extend beyond branches to Permanent's corporate offices and call centers, so training information and corporate communications content can be shared there as well.

Radiant Ireland will supply the bank with Ryarc's CampaignManager software platform, and the network will be operated by long-standing Irish print merchandising supplier SL Graphics.

Amazing to think we're at a point where a 100-branch network barely cracks the rollouts honor roll, isn't it?

Content Worst-Practice #4

Your loop is 1-2 spots long.

Look, this is just inexcusable, but it happens all the time. The Wachovia branches in New York, for example, show a loop of 2 rotating spots. No news. Coincidentally or otherwise (both Wachovia and BofA use the same vendor for digital signage in New York), Bank of America shows 2-3 spots over and over again, albeit interspersed with news. So as not to discriminate unfairly, Charles Schwab, Chase, Scotiabank, Lloyd's TSB, and many, many others deserve to be called out, too...

Content Worst-Practice #3

3. You've split the screen into multiple content windows
This is likely a controversial addition to the list, given that so many digital signage networks partake in it, but splitting the screen into multiple content windows—generally in the form of a main panel, a side-bar, and a news/stock ticker or two—is an unabashedly bad practice. For a moment, let’s explore two most common reasons for doing so…

The big television news networks do it. Yes, the networks do, but they don’t have anything invested in what particular bit of content their viewers are watching on their screen. Banks, on the other hand, are generally footing the cost of the network in hopes of selling additional products to their customers…why would they want to provide an alternative to watching their ads while they are running? Given the choice between reading a news ticker, watching the weather, or watching an ad for home equity, which would you choose?

The news material keeps customers entertained, and alleviates wait-line fatigue. Yes, news, weather, and sports material does keep customers entertained, but there’s no need to provide it all at once. In fact, exit interviews conducted during a pilot test for one of the US’ largest retail banks indicated that customers preferred when syndicated content was provided one bit at a time (ie. separate spots for news, weather, and sports sprinkled throughout the loop), finding it easier to read. And on the wait-time point, branches whose screens displayed multiple content windows faired no better than those in which the entire screen was dedicated to one spot at a time.

It helps keep the content fresh. Bosh. XML feeds can be incorporated into other content just as easily as they can into a ticker. If anything, keeping content in four panes fresh should be more difficult, because there are more “mouths” to feed.

In all, just a bad idea.

Content Worst-Practice #2

2. Your digital content changes out less frequently than your print

Two of the most frequently cited benefits of digital signage are the ease and low-cost of message change-out, but don’t tell that to a number of banks, who change their print materials more frequently than they do their digital content.

This actually occurs pretty frequently in cases where there is either a sub-scale network or stalled pilot program (Citi here in New York, ABN Amro in Chicago, or US Bank and Fifth Third in Cincinnati come to mind) and frankly it’s understandable. Given limited time and capital, resources should always be concentrated on the programs reaching the largest audience, ie. existing print. However, in a number of scale bank digital signage networks, print is still changed out more frequently than digital content….in a word, inexplicable.

Take Wachovia’s 30 branches here in New York, which are equipped with digital screens located above tellers and in the windows, along with some fantastic, large-scale print campaign fixtures (disclosure: Wachovia is my bank, and they’re fantastic from a service perspective). In the last six months, I can remember the print campaigns changing at least four times (high-rate money market account, $100 bonus checking offer, student checking, and co-op equity line). During that same period, I think the digital content has changed once. Let’s explore the economics, based the following assumptions:

• 3 print merchandising fixtures per branch
• 2 campaign graphics per fixture (2-sided) @ $ 50 per graphic
• $ 20 shipping and $15 installation per campaign, per branch
• $ 20,000 agency and print production fees per campaign

Using these figures, and assuming the Wachovia NY branches receive unique material (believable, given that the offers are different here than elsewhere in the network), the cost to produce and install every print campaign is $ 30,050, or $ 120,200 for the four campaigns I saw over the past six months. Let’s assume, generously, that Wachovia spent $20k for the 2 new spots they produced for their digital signs during the same period (likely overstated given the low production value).

If you believe those figures, in an environment where all branches have both print and digital campaign capabilities, Wachovia is allocating its branch marketing budget 85/15 in favor of print materials, spending 6x the dollars on print, and changing campaigns 4x as frequently. If you believe the statistics on media effectiveness, which skew heavily in favor of digital…what gives?

(Final note: my personal opinion is that large-scale print graphics are more effective than digital when it comes to windows-based messaging, but it still doesn’t justify the change-out frequency skew)

Content Worst-Practice #1

Your screens show competitors' ads

The last 2-3 years have seen a boom in banks installing flat-screen televisions in their teller areas, most often playing CNN, MSNBC, or another broadcast news station to entertain customers while they wait for service.  While seemingly innocuous, in reality these banks are exposing their customers to thousands of their competitors' advertisements...while they wait in their own branches! 

If we assume banks show 2,250 broadcast hours per year (9 hours/day x 5 days/week x 50 weeks/year), and that there are 15 minutes of advertising per hour at 30 seconds per ad (network averages), it means branch visitors are exposed to 67,500 ads on a yearly basis.  Having watched CNN for more than a few hours in my lifetime, I think it fair to assume 1 in 5 ads are financial services oriented, meaning 13,500 competitor ads grace screens in bank branches annually.

The TV epidemic is visible in many different banks here--Citi and Signature Bank are two examples--but perhaps worse yet is Bank of America's network, as I wrote earlier in the week.  BofA, who have the mechanism already in place to deliver their own content, is mixing their material seemingly randomly with broadcast TV, which is what led to E*Trade's high-rate savings ad to be played (while BofA advertised an inferior rate on their print materials!) while I walked by the branch the other day.

Come on, guys.  Seriously.

The Top-7 Content Worst-Practices Countdown

My hatred for the phrase "Content is King," well-known among my close associates, is due largely to the fact that it has been hackneyed to the point of meaninglessness. But if in fact "Content is King," then there are a number of pretenders to the throne among financial services networks.

Although banks using digital signage deserve a tremendous amount of credit in other capacities--the industry, afterall, has probably been the quickest to adopt the new medium--when it comes to content a great number of them deserve a bit of scolding. At some level this probably shouldn't be that surprising, given that the industry's traditional lack of humor and (more likely) rigorous compliance requirements gave birth to that timeless slogan "Great Rate, Ask Us How." Some institutions, such as Harris Bank, Synovus, Citizens-Charter One, Chase, and SunTrust, are definitely getting it right, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

Over the next week or so we'll be counting down the "7 Content Worst-Practices" perpetrated by FS digital media marketers, many of which can be seen every day here in New York. More detail will be provided for each worst-practice in an individual post, but without further adieu...

The "7 Content Worst-Practices"

7. You're using your web or broadcast content in-branch
6. You're using (or not using) audio
5. You're showing local news...in the wrong locality!
4. Your loop is 1-2 spots long
3. You've split the screen into multiple content windows
2. Your digital content changes out less frequently than your print
1. Your screens show competitors' ads

Rumor: Commonwealth Bank Network Rollout

Ring the bell! Rumor has it that another market leader has adopted digital signage as its primary form of branch communications, and if true then we have our next entrant in the rapidly expanding 1,000-site network category.

Commonwealth Bank, the largest of Australia's "Four Pillars," is said to have begun network-wide digital signage deployment to its more than 1,000 retail branches. Although details are sparse at the moment, the bank is said to have made the decision after a lengthy pilot process, and that Fujitsu Australia (long a player in the Aussie digital signage market) is the lead supplier, which suggests that TelEntice could be the software engine behind the network.

More information as it becomes available--please email it if you have it!--and hopefully I'll be able to come upon some photos while in I am in Australia later this month.

Bank Hapoalim - Network Rollout

The Middle East has been a hotbed for financial services digital signage networks lately (albeit mostly on a small scale) but Bank Hapoalim, Israel's largest consumer bank, maintains the largest. Starting nearly two years ago, the bank began a rollout of a comprehensive digital communications system to its 250 branches. According to a press release at the time, each location is now equipped with digital signs in four different zones--the teller counter, the business banking zone, the retail lending zone, and the personal banker zone--each showing a unique "channel." Content consists of 30% entertainment and 70% advertisements, as well as displaying customers' positions in queue (a clever "now serving" application), and a permanent Reuters information ticker on the bottom of the screen. Ad targeting is done generally on a regional basis, but also using attributes such as branch size, services available, and customer mix.

Note to bank marketers: Including news/stock price tickers on the bottom of the screen is a bizarre obsession of many network operators and, according to at least one test, an absolutely dismal idea. Results from a pilot I conducted on content effectiveness showed across-the-board declines in standard media measures (awareness, recall, etc.) for the "main" content displayed when tickers were present, likely a by-product of the increased visual clutter and distraction of customers who read the news instead of watching ads. Even forgetting the test for a moment, intuitively, if you want customers to watch your ads, why would you provide them with a competing alternative?!

As well as its use as a marketing vehicle, Hapoalim also uses its network to communicate to its staff before- and after-hours. Content is developed by the bank's internal marketing department, and the network is managed using C-nario's software application.

(Photos taken from C-nario website)

Hey, Hey BofA...

...do something about your content in New York, and stop mixing it with a live broadcast feed!

This article deserves to be expanded more broadly to encompass the general "crisis of content" plaguing so many bank digital signage networks today (well documented here, as well), but I couldn't help but comment on the Bank of America branch in Grand Central this morning, which includes at least a dozen screens of different shapes and sizes.

There, broadcasting on all screens during the morning subway rush, I watched a fanastic advertisement for E*Trade's new high-yield checking account. Not a bad idea, Bank of America...maybe I'll close my account with you and open one up there.

E*Trade Financial - Flagship Stores

E*Trade made a pretty big splash a few years back, when they announced they were moving from "clicks to bricks" by building flagship retail trading locations in San Francisco and New York. If you never had the opportunity to visit one, they were literally littered with plasma screens, LED tickets, and big-boards flashing stock quotes and providing E*Trade's own closed circuit television feed. As quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle back in 2000, someone close to E*Trade said about the stores,

This is anything but a branch strategy...this creates a concept store that presents the brand. (Full article: here)

Are these high-concept retail financial services "branded experience" stores worth the money? Not to me, and apparently not to E*Trade.

While E*Trade has continued to open branches across the US--undoubtedly buoyed by their burgeoning deposit business, as well as the core trading offer--the Manhattan flagship location (pictured above), has long since been shuttered and is now a Wachovia or a Chase branch (can't remember which). The San Francisco flagship on Market Street is still operational, but I suspect that has more to do with closing an office in your hometown in a location with landmark status than it does with any sort of break-even.

The lesson for all of us? The "branded experiences" not linked to any tangible service or communications functionality just don't cut it for customers, and don't cut it as ROI justification long-term. (One potential exception: ING Direct's coffee shops, which we'll address in an upcoming article)

(Photos taken from E*Trade Annual Report)