Today, Zocalo Group's second Recommendation Index was announced, focusing on how consumers are recommending and talking about the Consumer Banking segment.  In a joint effort with M/A/R/C Research, the study provides a list of the most recommended banks and the words used to describe them, while creating a score that marketers can use to compare against other brands in the same category.

Due to tough economic times, banks nationwide have seen more frequent restructuring and closures, making the need to meet consumer demand more important than ever before.  For those still standing, it becomes imperative to know how their brand is being recommended and which words or services drive that conversation.  

How would you describe your own bank?  Positively or negatively?

Ever wonder what others are saying about it and how it compares to competitors?

This quarter's Recommendation Index helps shed light on those very questions, looking at more than 40 banks in both online and offline analysis.  Which of those most recommended?  The results are in.

Leading the pack are PNC Bank, Wells Fargo, Capital One, ING, Bank of America, HSBC, Merrill Lynch, Wachovia and JPMorgan Chase. Although, not a specific brand, credit unions placed second on the list overall behind PNC Bank.

Top drivers of recommendation in the overall consumer banking category include: positive customer service experience, good interest rates, rewards programs and incentives, convenience (foremost online, followed by brand locations), and the perception of being trustworthy and dependable.  

Alternately, leading causes for negative consumer word of mouth include: poor customer service, followed by overdraft fees, changes to rates or services without adequate warning, the perception of being untrustworthy, and additional fees or charges.

In addition to key brands and themes, the Recommendation Index offers an average for the entire category - consumer banking falls at 13.5 - illustrating that consumers provide positive recommendations 13.5 times more often than negative recommendations. This provides an industry standard for judging the impact of a brand's marketing efforts.

For additional details on the Recommendation Index as well as results from 2009's analysis of the Casual Dining Restaurant category, please visit www.recommendationindex.com.

Which banks do you recommend and why?  What is the single most important thing a bank can do to keep your business?





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With all the speculation about the potential success of the Ipad, we're seeing a lot of word mouth about this new product, from points of view emanating from all ends of the spectrum.  Not since Nostradamus put feather and quill to parchment have we had such provocative prognostication and conversation about the future; to wit, whether Jobs' new device will have the impact of Sir Isaac Newton (like, big) or Apple's Newton (tiny tiny).

And while much of the talk is about how the "marketplace" will respond to such a new product, it's easy to get over our heads quickly.  Let's not forget the "marketplace" is just a bunch of people, like you and me, who buy and use things we like and don't the things we dislike.  Following that logic, let's do our own speculation on the future success of Apple's new screen, the Ipad.

As I see it, we, human beings, not the "marketplace," today use screens in our lives to do three things: 1) Create 2) Communicate and 3) Consume.  Pick up a Best Buy circular or wander into the electronics section of any big box and you'll see no shortage of screens on sale, of all shapes, sizes and forms.

Screens for Creation:  Computers do a really good job of this, whether desktop, laptop, or netbook; computers are screens that help us make things.  Typically with keyboards, they're singularly awesome at helping us we build, write, assemble, and edit content.  They're pretty good at communicating (email, social networking, and chat) and ok at consuming (surfing the web or watching a DVD). 

Screens for Communication:  Mobile devices are really good at this, and today's smartphones are powerful in helping us reach out and stay in touch through voice, SMS and MMS, and social networks.  However, these devices typically aren't the best at creating content (ever tried to write a long email on an iPhone) or consumption (ever tried to read a book on your Blackberry?)

Screens for Consumption:  This is where it gets interesting because, to date, screens built primarily for consumption were either really big, such as your monster HDTV at home, or really small, like your Ipod nano.   Big consumption screens were made for groups of people to experience the content together, primarily video, and small screens were primarily for individuals to consume music first, with video as an afterthought.  And here is where Mr. Jobs has laid his bet...we will want to consume all types of content, including content that has sight, sound and motion, personally. 

We consistently hear of Ipad users marveling about the device's immersive, incredible capability to experience content, whether it's movies, books, photos or the web.  This is where the Ipad seems to shine brightest; it's a phenomenal personal consumption device first and foremost, that allows you to communicate (email, social networking, but not phone); however, it's not a very good creation device (no camera, virtual keyboard, limited storage, etc.) because that's not its focus.  We've never seen a device that emphasizes personal consumption in a way the Ipad does, which is why it's revolutionary and, I speculate, while it will be a runaway success.



How might we measure this success, you may ask?  Enter the (not yet industry standard) Kissel Formula for Word of Mouth Capability (The KFWOMC).  This highly scientific (ha!) formula stipulates that a product's ultimate success (PS) is dependent on how highly and smartly marketed a product is (M), multiplied by whether the product Sucks (-) or is Cool (+), which directly correlates to its Word of Mouth and whether people will talk about and make the product successful.  I would imagine the equation would look something like this:


In practice, and without a tremendous amount of intensive regression, the formula could help us explain disasters like the movie Waterworld and New Coke (both highly marketed but sucked), and runaway successes like sliced bread (high "cool" factor for the time) and the mobile phone.  Ok, so looking back is always easy, but what about the formula's predictive capability?
 
Looking forward, and using the above formula, the Ipad will do well...highly marketed, great story, very cool, leading to positive word of mouth, leading to product success (hey, over 500,000 sold already!)  The formula, however, does not bode well for Baltic evening wear becoming the next fashion trend, nor for any future entertainment vehicles that include Janeane Garofalo.  In regards to Apple's newest innovation, only time will tell on how successfully this new device can impact the future of how we create, communicate and consume content.




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Twitter announced the first part of a plan for monetizing the social networking service: "Promoted Tweets." These sponsored status updates will appear in keyword search results by advertisers.


This is great for three reasons:

- Offers value to community. Twitter users can benefit from knowing the latest deal from favorite businesses. I personally have searched for a specific brand on Twitter to see their latest status updates, sales or news in case there are calls-to-action that peak my interest. For example, Dunkin' Donuts offered a free pastry with coffee purchase until 10am and it was only through my Twitter feed that I noticed the offer.

- It doesn't disrupt the experience. At this point, only one Promoted Tweet will be displayed on the search results page, so a user doesn't have to scroll through tons of company deals that may not have anything to do with the search. These also will be limited on a user's personal news stream, preventing over saturation in personal accounts.

- Recognizable. It is a process similar to Google's sponsored results, so the majority of Twitter users will be familiar and comfortable with it. The ad's will be clearly labeled.

Additionally, Twitter is testing out the process, so if people aren't looking/clicking through a sponsored tweet, the advertiser won't be charged, giving brands a cost-effective way to experiment using the channel to generate revenue.

It has also been suggested that this new strategy by Twitter may be a good opportunity for brands confronting negative conversations to mitigate or offer a more positive viewpoint via the new Promoted Tweet model. From a user's perspective, however, this could come across as an unauthentic attempt by the brand to solve a problem or misunderstanding.

Interestingly, Yelp also announced last week that they were removing the equivalent of Promoted Tweets on their review channel - killing "Featured Reviews." This is a more sensitive issue, as businesses expressed pressure from sales teams to purchase and users didn't seem to always understand that the first review was chosen and paid for by the business.
 
What do you think of the Yelp ad model? Is it good for brands and users? Will Promoted Tweets on Twitter last?


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As technology and social networks grow faster by the second, it gets more and more difficult to keep up with every update. "Content curation," or the input of internet content at faster rates than it can be consumed, is a legitimate concern right now for many online users. YouTube statistics reveal that 24 hours of video is being uploaded per minute; Twitter is now reporting 50 million Tweets per day; Facebook statuses are updated 60 million times per day. With social updates occurring constantly, it's no wonder that we can't keep up with our friends, let alone world news or current events. 

Being named "the Web's biggest challenge in recent years," content curation reveals the changing ways in which consumers search out and react to information. It also brings up some important concerns. Are there drawbacks to this overflow? And are we equipping ourselves in the right ways to handle this massive quantity of information? How do we determine what's relevant?

As social media junkies, we can see the benefits to continuous and perpetual streams of information. We eat it up as each new story comes; however, the average user does not have the time or patience to spend paging through each link or story to find exactly what they are looking for. In a world where time is of the essence, everybody must realize that the inundation of haphazard online content is going to keep growing and it's up to each of us to moderate web intake. But how? In a perfect world, we would want to combine efficiency, personalization and relevance as it relates to the news and information we find online. But that's much easier said than done. 

Enter Digg.com.

Over time, social voting website, Digg.com, has become a staple for technology lovers to find the latest and greatest, most relevant stories to hit the web. Recently, the site revealed its plans to begin filtering Facebook and Twitter links through a personalized home page based on the activities of friends. Coming in the near future, Digg will let you sign in using any of your existing social network accounts and allow viewers to "Digg" stories without even logging in at all. With the plan to not only share links and updates from social networks (and the usual Digg stories), but rank them as well, there is no telling how this re-positioning can enhance the relevance of Digg to web users.

By combining pertinent news, high-interest statuses, updates and photos of social network friends all in one place, Digg may have uncovered the cure to content curation. The not-so-easy fix of efficiency, personalization and relevance may come together, but we all know how unpredictable the internet can be. Related platforms like Google Wave and Flavors.me have also attempted to guide users toward a single location for all their social networking and content needs, but in many ways have ended with lukewarm results and little widespread knowledge. 

Until we know how successful the Digg undertaking may be, we will continue to take the heaps of internet content as it comes and try to stay sane in the process.

Image Source: http://langwitches.org

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With a greater number of brands and marketers realizing the value of blogger and influencer outreach programs, it's becoming necessary for these individuals to find ways to differentiate themselves from their counterparts. If the goal is to engage consumers in new and innovative ways, how can bloggers or influencers stay ahead of the game to be recognized as a leading expert with mass appeal and influence? In short, how do they prove to marketers that they're right for the job?
 
The increasing use of live video broadcasting from mobile devices might just be the ace in the hole that bloggers and influencers need. There are a number of different phones that support a handful of mobile broadcasting services, such as Qik, Bambuser, and Next2Friends, but Ustream is emerging as one of the most widely used platforms currently available.

Ustream offers a free, interactive video broadcast platform that allows anyone with a webcam and an internet connection (or smartphone with the Ustream Application) to broadcast live, high-quality video to an audience of unlimited size. Users can either broadcast live to their Ustream channel or straight to their own website with an embeddable code.

This 'Social Stream' feature also allows Ustream users to chat live with viewers and simultaneously send updates to their Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and AIM accounts - all in real-time. With the combination of this live broadcasting and online connectivity, a new level of interactivity has been created for users.

Imagine that a car company is hosting a test drive for influencers and bloggers. Now imagine that one of the bloggers in attendance is broadcasting the event live to their blog. Using Ustream or similar technologies, they could easily conduct live video interviews with product directors, capture in-the-moment footage of a test drive, demonstrate the car's sound system, or show off the rumble of the car's exhaust. By communicating with viewers in real-time, the blogger is able to tailor the viewers' experience and foster deeper engagement.

As with any sort of endorsement or review, transparent disclosure of the blogger's relationship to the brand and/or product must be shared as well. When done responsibility and consciously, using live and mobile video broadcasting could be a creative way for bloggers and influencers to set themselves apart.

So, I ask you, what best practices would you share when using this technology? What do you see as some of the risks and/or benefits? How will brands and marketers evolve this this to fuel engagement and recommendation?

Image Source: http://techcrunch.com/2009/09/17/ustreams-mobile-video-broadcasting-comes-to-android/






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