LendingTree Emphasizes Monthly Payment Amount Instead of Rate

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Advertising & Promotion, LendingTree, Loans & Credit

Lendingtree_msn_aug06_1 LendingTree owns MSN’s homepage again <msn.com>, locking up the main page sponsorship today (9am Pacific Time) with a refi pitch in the upper-right corner and an ad for home equity loans in the Money area (see inset).

In an approach popularized by car dealers, both ads emphasize monthly payment amount rather than rate. This theme is carried through on the landing page which has no mention of rate. In fact, you could complete the entire loan application without ever seeing the rate.

The only rate link is the relatively faint reverse-type line in the upper-right corner. Clicking on it delivers a small, quarter-page popup with disclosures for all 41 promotional offers currently in use by LendingTree — 6,800-words in all across 24 screens (download lendingtree_disclosures.doc).

Interestingly, both offers lead to the same landing page. While it would probably be more effective to craft different pages for each loan type, LendingTree may prefer a common landing page to more easily compare results from its different promotional ads.

Lendingtree_msn_landing_aug06

 

 

 

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Two-For-One Offer to BAI’s Retail Delivery Conference

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: BAI, Conference Calendar

Update: The 2-for-1 offer is no longer available through this link. However, you can still save $350 ($700 for two) before Sept. 5 — enough for a snazzy new monitor for your desktop anyway. But first, check your inbox for an Aug. 2 or 3 email from BAI with the 2-for-1 offer. You should still be able to claim it with your promo code.

Bai_rds_logo_1If your team is headed to Las Vegas in November to take in BAI's <bai.org> bank-tech extravaganza, you better jump on this offer before Sept. 5: two admissions for the price of one (main conference only). That will save you nearly $1,700, enough to put that new plasma display in the conference room. If you are going by yourself, you'll still save $350 with this offer.

Here's the link:  http://www.bai.org/retaildelivery/

–JB

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Quicken/Money Release 2007 Versions

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Personal Financial Management

Intuit_quicken_box_1With the release of Quicken 2007 yesterday, the annual PFM-upgrade season is in full swing. Microsoft beat Intuit by a few weeks with the launch of Money in mid-July. Although still one of the more popular consumer software applications, new PFM releases don't garner near the interest of a decade ago.

Why? Because online banking has made the programs irrelevant for most consumers, unless they run some type of home business or are off-the-charts organized. Also, like many packaged software applications the "upgrades" have little that is truly new and different for the average user. That's not because the software developers have grown lazy, it's just that about every useful feature was incorporated a decade ago (Quicken is celebrating its 23rd birthday this year).

Microsoft_money_budgetingInterestingly, in an attempt to appeal to a broader cross-section, the companies both use "back-to-basics" appeals in their press releases (here for Quicken, here for Money). Walt Mossberg's Wednesday column, Mossberg Solution, echoed this theme in evaluating the "basic" versions of each, finding Quicken Basic to be somewhat superior to Money Essentials.

Above is a screenshot of Money's budgeting worksheet (click for closer view).

However, we see little likelihood the programs will increase their market share. As banks add basic PFM functionality and long-term archives to online banking, the packaged apps become even less necessary for the broad market. That said, the installed PFM user base is an important banking segment that should not be ignored.

For a more thorough analysis, along with usability lessons from the packaged apps, be sure to read the next issue of Online Banking Report (#131), due out in mid-August.

—JB

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The Wall Street Journal Profiles Identity Theft Protection Services

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: CardCops, Credit Reports & ID Theft Protection, Cyveillance, LifeLock, Security & Privacy, TrustedID

Today's Wall Street Journal ran a run-down of identity theft startups. Companies mentioned:

  • Lifelock_guaranteeLifeLock: Founded by Todd Davis, the Chandler, AZ-based firm has been offering its $10/mo service since April 2005. The company also protects children living in the same household for an additional $10 per year. Its plain-language guarantee featured prominently in the upper-right corner of its home page should serve as an example for financial institutions (see inset).
  • TrustedID: A Redwood City, CA-based company co-founded in January by former Fair Isaac executive Scott Mitic offers protection services for $7.95/mo.
  • CardCops: The Malibu, CA-based firm scans the Internet for stolen information and for $24.95/mo alerts its customers if their data has been compromised.
  • Cyveillance: The Arlington, VA firm also sifts through the online world looking for stolen data. The company resells its service as Identity Guard through Intersections Inc.

Financial institutions should be partnering with credit bureaus and/or identity theft providers to provide education and protection services to banking customers. Refer to previous articles here.

— JB

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WhatBills – Bill Payment Reminder Service

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Bill payment, Personal Financial Management, Whatbills

Whatbills_logoLaunched this month, Whatbills <whatbills.com> is a simple $1.95/mo Web-based service for tracking your bills and sending yourself email reminders to pay. Although the functionality is limited, iWhatbills_googlesearch_quickenonlinet's the kind of service banks should be offering. We found out about the service through its Google advertisement on the phrase "quicken online" (see screenshot right).

The interface is similar to Billeo (NB Feb. 14), but with far fewer functions. Users can do three things:

  1. Enter bill name, category, due date and amount
  2. Send themselves email reminders to pay
  3. Mark bills as paid

The entire program today is shown on the screenshot below:

Whatbills_account

Business model
At a cost of $1.95/mo, which is about what you'd pay each year for Intuit's Quicken Basic, the company doesn't seem to have a compelling selling proposition. It would make more sense to offer a limited free version, perhaps earning a few pennies per month per user by displaying advertising on the user interface. Then upgrade users to a premium plan with more features.

Whatbills_homeBut neither of those business models will yield much more than low-six figures per year. A more likely scenario for the San Diego-based company is a sale to Microsoft, Google, or a major financial institution for a few hundred thousand, a price that would be less expensive for a large company than developing the application internally.

Update: A similar Web-based service, BudgetTracker <budgettracker.com> founded in 2003, has a free version that uses Google AdSense revenue to keep it running. For $19.99/yr users can upgrade to an ad-free version that also provides unlimited data storage and several additional features such as bank-data import. See the price plans here.

–JB

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Top U.S. Financial Brands

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Advertising & Promotion, Advertising Age, Metrics & Market Research

Ad_age_logoLast week (July 17), Advertising Age <adage.com> published its annual list of U.S. "megabrands" as defined by total measured advertising expenditures in 2005 (see Note 1, click on link at bottom). The top six, and eight of the top 10 were phone or car brands.

  1. Verizon >>> $1.7 billion
  2. Cingular >>> $1.3 billion
  3. Sprint >>> $1.0 billion
  4. Ford >>> $980 million
  5. Chevrolet >>> $880 million
  6. Nissan >>> $810 million
  7. Dell >>> $780 million
  8. Toyota >>> $770 million
  9. McDonald's >>> $740 million
  10. Honda >>> $640 million

Financial megabrands
The biggest financial brands were American Express and Citi, tied at number 14 with $590 million in 2005 advertising. Seventeen other financial services brands made the top 200, including what has to be one of the biggest surprises in the top-200 list, LowerMyBills.com which spent an estimated $130 million in advertising last year, more than Time Warner, The Gap, or Johnson & Johnson.

  14.  American Express >>> $590 million
  14.  Citi >>> $590 million
  31.  Visa >>> $360 million
  35.  Capital One >>> $350 million
  36.  MasterCard >>> $340 million
  40.  State Farm >>> $320 million
  48.  Allstate >>> $290 million
  56.  Progressive >>> $250 million
  66.  TD Ameritrade >>> $220 million
  72.  Chase >>> $210 million
  72.  Bank of America >>> $210 million
  99.  Wachovia >>> $170 million
  99.  Washington Mutual >>> $170 million
113.  Fidelity >>> $150 million
122.  E*Trade >>> $140 million
134.  LowerMyBills.com >>> $130 million
146.  Schwab >>> $120 million
159.  Ameriquest >>> $110 million
177.  LendingTree >>> $100 million
—————————————-
Total >>> $4,820

Industry spending
These 19 financial services megabrands spent $4.8 billion in 2005 (see Note 2, click on link at bottom). The financial services sector was the fourth largest, trailing automotive, retail, and telecom. In all, financial services account for about 10% of $49 billion in total measured advertising expenditures across 200 so-called "megabrands."

— JB

Notes:

  1. Measured media spending from TNS Media Intelligence includes spending in consumer magazines, Sunday magazines, local magazines, b2b magazines, local and national newspapers, network TV, spot TV, syndicated TV, network cable TV, network radio, national spot radio, local radio and Spanish-language magazines, newspapers, and TV. It does not include Internet spending.
  2. Advertising Age's definitions of financial services are slightly different than ours, since they show industry spending of $4.4 billion while our list of the 19 financial brands amounts to $4.8 billion.

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Zions launches SecurEntry powered by PassMark

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Security & Privacy, Zions Bank

Zions_logo_2Zions Bank <zionsbank.com> is one of the early entrants in the parade of banks and credit unions rolling out multi-factor authentication this year. The Utah-based bank is using the PassMark/RSA <passmarksecurity.com> system pioneered by Bank of America last year (NB May 26, 2005).

Although there are compliance and security reasons enhancing security, the biggest benefit is marketing and PR. Just today, highly influential Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg urged readers to ignore financial institution emails saying, "…never, ever consider any email from a financial institution as legitimate." Ouch.

Zions_home_1

SecurEntry positioning
While we like the SecurEntry name, its page-dominating position on the Zions homepage (see above) is a bit over the top. Granted, they are in education mode as they race to enroll every customer within the next two months. But there's a reason why bank branches in high-crime areas use Plexiglas enclosures instead of steel bars; you don't want to make your customers afraid. The best security measures are subtle and discourage criminals without overly impacting the 99.9% of your customers who would never try to make off with the contents of the cash drawer.

It would work better to place the SecurEntry logo near the log-in area in the upper-right. That way, customers concerned about security could click-through to learn more, and customers that weren't already paranoid could go about their banking business without feeling new insecurities.

How it works
SecurEntry is a multi-factor authentication scheme identical to that used by 20 million customers of Bank of America, Stanford Credit Union, and others (see NB April 12). The new system, launched July 11, is optional for the first two months and becomes mandatory on Sept. 8. The bank estimates it will take five minutes to enable. Zions posted a Flash and HTML demo explaining the system, a one-page Quick Reference Guide (PDF), seven-page illustrated tutorial (PDF), and 11-question FAQ. 

Off-topic: brief homepage critique
Zions' new homepage design is hard to judge. Taken individually, the modern graphics and succinct copy are excellent. However, the overall effect is way too busy, with too many elements screaming for the user's attention. The bank needs to better prioritize what they want to communicate on the homepage. The main points can be emphasized with strong graphical treatment while less-important areas are reachable through more subtle navigation, such as sub-menus.

—JB

 

To learn more about how to promote online security and peace of mind, check out Marketing Security: The sensitive issue of publicizing security and authorization enhancements from our sister publication, the Online Banking Report.

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Zillow Opens “Financing” Area; Lands $25 Million in VC

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Mortgage, Refi & Home Equity, Zillow

Zillow_logo_2Seattle-based Zillow (see NB Feb. 8) announced a $25 million second-round investment led by Boston's PAR Capital Management. The home-value and real estate-listing service, founded by Expedia's Rich Barton, received 2.1 million unique visitors in June according to comScore.

Zillow_heatmapWith a total of $57 million raised, the 118-person company can create interesting new products from its database of 67 million homes. The latest twist: residential real estate "heat maps" that show home values, measured in sales price per square feet, across 18 metro areas (click on the inset to see Seattle's heat map, with red being the higher prices).

Zillow also launched a "financing" section last month, complete with its own tab on the homepage (see screenshot below). It's clearly a first effort with a cluttered design. An unattractive LoanWeb banner dominates the page with Google ads running along the right side and LendingTree and Bankrate.com providing interactive tools along the bottom.

Zillow_finance_home

Financial institution opportunities
Financial institutions can use Zillow and its competitors (RedFin, HouseValues, HomeGain, PropertyShark, RealEstate.com, Trulia) in several ways:

  1. Advertising medium: With millions of potential home buyers using the sites, it's an ideal place to market mortgage and other bank products, especially with a "new mover" package (see NB April 5).
  2. Prospecting tool: Branch loan officers could use the service to map potential untapped home equity in their neighborhood. Although this information is already available in other prospecting databases, the ease of use and mapping capabilities of the Web-based services could help loan officers hone their pitch.
  3. Consumer education: Although Zillow is well known among the early adopter crowd, it's not exactly a household name. Introducing your customers to Web-based home-value services would make an interesting addition to your consumer education area or monthly newsletter.

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PayPal Mobile Promotion in Print this Fall

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Advertising & Promotion, Mobile Payments, PayPal

Paypal_mobil_luckymagConde Nast's Lucky magazine will use PayPal Mobile technology to allow users to buy products from 18 advertisers in its September issue (see inset). Using PayPal's Text2Buy technology, readers will be able to purchase products from magazine advertisers by simply sending a text message to the number in the ad, then confirming the purchase when PayPal automatically calls back a few seconds later (see NB June 5 for more on how it works).

This is believed to be the first major offline promotion of PayPal's new service. According to The New York Times, the following advertisers have signed on: Avon, Bulova, Dooney & Bourke, Estee Lauder, Ford, Le Tigre, Liz Claiborne, L'Oréal, Perry Ellis, Sephora, Target, and Unilever.

Readers will also be able to order online via a special website <livebuyit.com> that was not operational at press time.

Banking applications
Paypal_mobile_texttobuy_unicefWhile spur-of-the-moment buying is not a major part of financial services, Text to Buy in financial advertising could be a simple way to order information, such as a loan application, mutual fund prospectus, or a new account kit. Advertisers would list a code in their print ad, billboard, or other offline promotional device (see UNICEF example in the inset; buyers simply text "water" to the 5-digit number to make a $10 donation). This would allow users to request info by simply entering 10 characters into their cellphones or mobile device. The information packet would ship to the "buyer's" PayPal address.

An even bigger application, especially around the holidays, would be ordering prepaid MasterCard/Visa/American Express gift cards. Different codes could be set up for different amounts. For example, text "card25" for a $25 gift card, "card50" for a $50 card and so on. A handling charge could cover the 3% processing fees due to PayPal.

Finally, financial institutions could use Text to Buy for non-financial items such as:

  • Donations to community causes
  • Entry fees for a community event such as 5k run
  • Signups for seminars
  • Schwag, e.g., t-shirts, hats and so on

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Good Landing by WAMU

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Advertising & Promotion, Deposits, Checking, Savings, CDs, Washington Mutual

Wamu_ad_rottentomatoesWashington Mutual, one of the more creative offline promoters, is beginning to apply its talent to online promotions. We're still not particularly fond of the "trapped bankers" creative (see NB April 28), but we like the bank's new "more than free checking" campaign.

We first ran across the promotion July 7 in a skyscraper-animated banner (175 x 500 pixel) on the right side of Rotten Tomatoes <rottentomatoes.com>, the popular film review aggregator (see inset).

The banner was good, but what we really liked was the landing page (see below). The design was clean and fresh (not so hard to do), and the copy was original and user-friendly, with just the right dose of humor (not so easy to do).

Wamu_ad_rottentomatoes_landing

Our only criticism is the crucial final step. Users clicking the "Get Started" button are delivered to a much different and more bank-like screen to begin the application. The relatively dull look (see below) is a real letdown after the originality of the landing page. It's so different, it may cause users to stop and rethink their decision to apply.   

Wamu_ad_rottentomatoes_startapp

The bank would likely convert more prospects if they continued the landing page theme through the first page of the application. Overall, we'll score the effort an A-.

–JB

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