Credit Unions’ Biggest Enemy
28 Jan
I really like credit unions.
No wait, I take that back. Truth be told, I couldn’t care less about credit unions. I like credit union people. It’s because I like them that I like to see credit unions succeed.
You see, I don’t believe that credit unions are inherently good. Anybody can claim that their mission is to help people. The proof is in the pudding.
This also means that I believe that banks (big ones, in particularly) aren’t inherently bad. Got news for some of you: I do business with a large bank. Have done so for many years. It treats me very well. And guess what: I’m not that delusional that I believe that I’m the only person it treats well (and you shouldn’t be, either).
But try telling that to the media, or to credit union people. They won’t hear it. Instead, it’s a constant stream of tweets with links to the MoveYourMoney thing. Or today, it’s a link to a CNNMoney article that says consumers’ relationships with big banks is the “equivalent of a dysfunctional relationship.”
What’s the reason for the perpetuation of this “dysfunctional” relationship? According to the article, it’s because “switching banks is simply too much of a hassle for many Americans.”
This is wrong. Absolutely wrong.
Switching banks is a piece of cake. One of the simplest things you can do. There is no shortage of banks that will be more than happy to make it a painless process. And if I’m not mistaken, there might even be a few firms that offer tools to banks and CUs to help them help consumers switch banks.
The overwhelming reason why consumers — make that some consumers — persist with a “dysfunctional” relationship is that they simply don’t care.
They don’t care enough about managing their money, or managing their financial life, or their relationships with their financial providers to switch. They’d rather spend their time researching the differences between guitar picks, or camera lenses, or whatever, than they would figuring what bank (or credit union) is best for them.
Credit unions’ biggest enemy isn’t the big banks. And it isn’t the difficulty of switching banks.
Credit unions’ biggest enemy is APATHY. When people care enough about managing their financial lives, they will care enough to find the right providers. (Which may — or may not — be credit unions).
The paradox here is that money is really really important to us, but managing it? Not so much.
For credit unions to succeed on a far grander scale, they have to get more people to care about managing their money. And not setting up big banks as some kind of Golem to be despised and shunned.
The trends are in CUs’ favor. There are three forces in play here: 1) The economy has forced people to become a lot more disciplined about managing their finances; 2) The tools available to manage one’s finances continue to evolve, and thanks to the Internet, they’re easier than ever to get data into and use; and 3) Gen Yers are whole lot more involved in the management of their financial lives than previous generations were at that age.
And yes, public sentiment against the big banks is clearly helping the CUs’ cause, as well.
But public sentiment is a fleeting thing. Consumers have an incredibly short span of attention. We have an amazing to forget and forgive. One teary confession and everything is back to normal (ain’t that right, Jimmy Swaggart?)
It’s time for credit unions — no, make that credit union people — to quit bashing the big banks, and to start focusing on their real enemy.
[Note: I'm not the only one who believes this. See this blog post from The Long Tail of Banking]
I agree completely. It’s an odd conundrum: people care about nothing more than money, but nothing less than their banking services. Doesn’t make sense but it’s 100% absolutely true.
On a related note, I don’t believe there’s any such thing as “switching” banks anymore. It’s easy, as you pointed out, but people don’t do it. Instead, they add a new bank now and then (like when they get a stupid $100 offer for opening a checking account), and then over time may drop another bank. But “switching” implies “I started a new relationship and ended an old one.” Just doesn’t happen, and as credit unions (and community banks), the industry needs to wake up and realize that. No more “switch to us” messages.
@Jeff Stephens – You said “I don’t believe there’s any such thing as “switching” banks anymore” I totally agree, most people just open up a new account and set it up to their liking and orphan their old account. This is a challenge for all of us in the financial services industry. We want the new account and do not want to loose the old account.
@dmgerbino
@David and @Jeff: I agree as well. One of the large banks has a name for this: They call it “silent attrition”. The account never closes, but the activity/balances dwindle. It drives them crazy because they don’t know where the money goes.
@Jeff – Amen. I am currently doing just that. I’ve opened a business checking with a credit union. Have my personal at another credit union. Have been waiting for my PIN for my new debit card for three weeks now. So, naturally there’s no way I’ll “switch” it all, as you imply. Shut the other one down.
Is it easy to switch? Hell no. There is no bigger pain in the ass than moving your checking account over completely with all the auto-pays, bill pay, wine clubs, health clubs, etc. that is tied to it. Switch kits are a joke. It’s just a big old packet from marketing that says…”Here, do it yourself.” And a reminder of just how much you have to do!
A little credit union in Portland has a human switch kit. A person you trust and agree to turn over all your information to and she does all the legwork for you. Now that’s focusing on the apathy enemy.
There is no one single reason people don’t switch. Inertia, apathy and the perceived hassle all play a role. There’s also a belief that all financial institutions suck equally, so why bother switching if you’ll just end up with the same/new problems?
There’s (almost) always more than one reason why anybody does (or doesn’t do) something. But this notion of “difficulty of switching” is an excuse, and a poor one at that. You’re really just helping me make my point: Why would people believe believe that all FIs suck equally? Because they don’t care enough to find out the differences.
It’s analogous to the reason people give when asked why they selected a bank: Convenient branch locations. Like that matters in this day and age. Do you eat at the restaurant closest to your house or office, just because it’s the closest? Of course not. You eat at the place where you like the food and experience. Even if it means driving a mile instead of walking 20 feet. You do this because you care about the quality of the food you eat.
Too many people simply don’t care that much about what bank they do business with.
Many people dislike their financial institutions, but don’t dislike them enough to do anything about it. The article that @financialbrand linked to earlier today (http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/27/news/companies/banks_checking_accounts/) is a good example of that. This indifference is what shows that individual financial institutions–and the industry as a whole–does not have a strong brand. Very few people hate or love a financial institution…they’re pretty much indifferent.
All of you must live under a rock. People of America love their bank. How do I know this? Just walk into any convenience store, clothing store, mall, airport and what do you see? You see bank logo hats, shirts, sweat shirts, gloves, mugs, posters, tatoos, etc. of just about every bank. Where I live, the two biggest banks are the Met bank and the Yankee bank. What was my point? Oh yea. Nobody is in love with their bank. Sports teams yes. Banks no.
But Mets fans love Citibank because their team plays at Citi Field, right?
Do people really want to love a bank, no matter how lovable it may [try to/actually] be?
How many brands do you personally really love? What kind of brands are they? Are they commodities/utilities? Or mostly hobbies, entertainment, etc.?
Do you think the rich and wealthy love their banks? I wonder. I certainly love the idea of private banking. Maybe the rich love their private banks because private banks love them back?
@Ron Shevlin, you said “But Mets fans love Citibank because their team plays at Citi Field, right?” – Hell no! Met’s fans hate Citibank, they took the name away from their beloved Shea Stadium. Oh and they hated the gross amount of the naming rights.
You see wonderful things like this have happened – “Congressmen demand Mets drop naming-rights deal with Citigroup” By Frank Della Femina
January 30, 2009, 11:48AM
William Perlman/The Star-Ledger
US Reps Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Ted Poe (R-Texas) issued a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner demanding that the New York Mets drop their $400-million naming-rights deal with Citigroup.
The primary reason for this demand stems from the bank receiving money as part of the federal bailout.
@dmgerbino
Wow…well said Ron! This is great thinking about consumer behavior in general. And without a doubt one of the best blog posts I’ve EVER read from ANYONE.
I wonder if the debit-card-overdraft excesses have caused consumers to care more about managing their money (given the penalties imposed for NOT managing it). Interestingly, the new rules will make apathy less costly again.
Thanks for the kind words, Jim. (Funny that you should comment today of all days — not an hour ago, I cited NetBanker in the report I’m writing on PFM).
I would put the overdraft excesses in the category of people becoming more disciplined about their financial lives. When times are good, we tend to ignore some of the little things that we pay for. But when we tighten the belts, those unnecessary things become a lot larger.
Now I realize that for some people, overdraft charges were in the astronomical range. But I’m referring more to the people who might have overdrawn once or twice a year, and didn’t get hit up with those outrageous cascading charges.
Ad-ology actually has research on this topic. It’s the Media Influence on Consumer Choice for Banks+Financial Services report ($495).
Ron, while I agree with many of your comments, I must disagree with the statement “Why would people believe believe that all FIs suck equally? Because they don’t care enough to find out the differences.”
It’s not THEIR job to find out the differences. It’s the FIs job to educate them through marketing. Credit Unions are not known for their aggressive marketing in most parts of the country.
Thanks for commenting, Lee (?). Fact of the matter is, you’re not the only one who disagrees with that statement. I don’t agree with it either on second thought. I couldn’t agree with you more that marketing’s #1 job is to make people care. After you make them care, THEN you can persuade them that you’re the better choice.
What? @C. Lee Smith You said “It’s the FIs job to educate them through marketing.”
What? @Ron Shevlin You said “I couldn’t agree with you (C. Lee Smith) more that marketing’s #1 job is to make people care.”
Marketing has nothing to do with making a customer care about a bank or credit union. The people in the branch, the support people in the back office, the lending team that meets with business customers, and the facilities personal all have a tough job to do and if they handle the customer experience exceptionally well, the door has been opened for a customer to begin to care. Both customer facing and non customer facing employees need to work together creating an experience that can not be beaten by your competition. It is the repetitive successful banking engagement process that allows a customer to care. If a bank message is we have great customer service (all banks and credit unions have that right?) and you don’t, marketing can’t help.
Look, people talk. We all know from other industries that if you are exceptional at treating the customer the way he/she wants to be treated and then exceed even that, the customer will begin to talk. If that talking finds its way to satisfied customers who are real talkative and have many connections, you will be entering the realm of a word of mouth marketing experience. Traditional marketing can not create that. Exceptional marketers can help that along, they never create it.
@dmgerbino
David: First off, I would say that I thought I was saying that marketings job #1 was to make people care — about the category, not the firm. This is why Apple has it easier than you do. There are tens of gazillions of gadget freaks who CARE when Apple launches a new product. How many people care when PTjerovident Bank launches a new checking account? (DAMN! I nearly fell asleep even THINKING about that!)
There’s a funnel in the marketing cycle — from awareness to consideration to preference to purchase. Marketing spends WAY too much time and effort on awareness (see Forrester’s new report on this). Moving through the funnel means getting people to care. Let’s go back to our example. With its dog and pony show for the iPad, Apple created awareness. Thanks to the fact that people CARE, people are already considering whether or not they’ll buy it. After you launch your new checking account, you can do a whole bunch of things to create awareness — TV/radio ads, buzz marketing tactics, whatever. But if nobody CARES, then where are you? NOWHERE?
p..s My earlier comment about Mets fans loving Citi because of the name of the stadium was all sarcasm.
I don’t think marketing can make people care. I’m with David and Roy. Marketing can only get people in the door. It takes the entire organization — particularly its people and products — to get people to care.
Ahem, I feel a little obliged to leave a comment — I believe I am the source of the “switching banks is simply too much of a hassle for many Americans” quote in the CNN Money article that Ron disparages.
And guess what, I agree with Ron. The quote lacked some context, but was made to reflect a manifestation of consumer apathy. Switching banks is indeed not that hard to do — for example, Umpqua Bank’s web site even greases the skids by offering a feature that allows conversion from other banks’ on-line bill pay to Umpqua’s on-line bill pay. However, many consumers can come up with a hundred things they’d rather do on a given Saturday than switch bank accounts.
In my view, “apathy” and “hassle” are two sides of the same coin. The bottom line is as Ron put it so well — money is important to us, but managing it isn’t.
Red, thanks a lot for commenting. I didn’t cite the source of that comment (you) because I know very well from personal experience that we often say a lot of things to a reporter when we talk to them for an article, and, quite frankly, and we never know what will get included and what won’t. That’s why I said it was the article that set up the hassle of switching as the reason for the dysfunctional relationship.
One other thing. What I’m really trying to disparage here is not so much the article, but credit unions’ big bank bashing. Big bank bashing is a short term tactic that may or may not produce results for CUs. Making people care about managing their financial lives is a strategy that promises to have longer term, more persistent results.
Ron, aren’t you talking about addressing engrained socio-cultural attitudes? It sounds like a Herculean task.
If the financial industry wants to communicate anything to American consumers, it better be (1) engrossing/engaging, (2) deeply personal, and/or (3) fun and entertaining.
To some extent, this might be deeply ingrained attitudes. But there are trends building to support this change — trends that have been developing for 50+ years. The underlying trend, in my opinion, is the desire to be more in control of our environment and lives. To me, this is a product of the higher levels of education we’ve achieved since WWII.
Second, is the trend of stock ownership. Today’s Gen Yers might not comprehend this, but there was a time, not that long ago, when the average US citizen didn’t own stocks (let alone have a 401(k) which invested in stocks. Even though many people might not own enough stock to warrant getting advice from an advisor, it’s a signal of participation in the world of financial services. But many people have been passive sideline spectators.
Third is the rise of the entitlement mentality. There seems to be an undercurrent of belief that if someone else has something, than I too must be entitled to have that as well. And to facilitate that mentality, people borrow. While there are many pundits who think we’re now entering the age of frugality, I couldn’t disagree more. As soon as the economy improves, people get new jobs, and find themselves with more money in their pocket, do you REALLY believe they’ll forego that new flat screen TV, that new car, or that new whatever? No way.
There’s also a growing recognition that our education system must include financial education.
Financial services marketers — and CU marketers, in particular — should build on these forces and get people to care more about managing their finances. It isn’t easy, but it isn’t Herculean.
Everyone in America needs to take what Ron said here to heart: “There seems to be an undercurrent of belief that if someone else has something, then I too must be entitled to have that as well. And to facilitate that mentality, people borrow. While there are many pundits who think we’re now entering the age of frugality, I couldn’t disagree more. As soon as the economy improves, people get new jobs, and find themselves with more money in their pocket, do you REALLY believe they’ll forego that new flat screen TV, that new car, or that new whatever? No way.”
Until Americans come to terms with the discrepancies between what they *need* and what they *want* or think they *deserve*, our relationship to money will continue to be morbidly unhealthy.
This is (to me) the part that sounds Herculean. With hundreds of ads assaulting us every day telling us what we need to buy in order to feel/be/look thinner, younger, sexier, more successful, etc., we are overwhelmed. Advertisers breed an attitude of dissatisfaction with the status quo. There is no such thing as good enough, and the only way you’ll ever be happy is if you buy, spend, borrow, repeat… Whatever you have today, you need something new, something bigger, something smaller, something better, something cooler.
The images and messages we’re exposed to 24/7 scream “spend, spend, spend.” That’s the only way to achieve the current mainstream version of “The American Dream.”
How can financial institutions counteract years of operative conditioning?
@Jeffery, very well said. A good friend who is an anthropologist once told me that when you observe something, always look to see what structures exist behind that observation – are their cultural, social or cognitive influences that are actually driving that behavior/attitude/belief? I’m with you – there is such a tremendously high level of noise, culturally, that has conditioned or desensitized our thinking on a number of financial fronts.
How can financial institutions counteract years of operative conditioning? I don’t know if they can, short term. To address it, financial institutions need to recognize the very long-term nature of this problem and put long-term, forward-thinking strategies in place to educate and guide around basic money management and principles. Will that ever happen? Probably not. But I think that’s why you see certain figureheads (talk show hosts, seminar hosts, etc.) emerge around which people rally because it’s offering an answer.
The next couple years are going to be pretty interesting!
People don’t care enough to vote like they should either.
Great insight Ron. It’s simply easier to “Talk the Talk” than “Walk the Talk.” But I do see that changing among progressive credit unions. But it only happens where the CEO is engaged. Where there is a CEO engaged in the culture shift at the credit union innovation is happening. Unfortunately too many CEO’s are pushing the culture shift to lower levels of management within the credit union.
@Roy: Good point about CEO engagement. But one question for you: Why is it “unfortunate” that CEOs are pushing the culture shift down to lower levels of management? Or are you saying that these CEOs are abdicating the cultural shift?
Abdicating.
Some great discussion. My perspective to add to the mix is that it’s not indifference, but resignation.
Quite frankly, this goes far beyond banking per se. Most people do consider banks to be relatively the same – and no, they haven’t actually done their homework. It’s a perception. But this is caused through a long-term exposure to poor or indifferent service across most of the interactions we have with most businesses over a long period of time. We have all come to expect disinterested sales staff, lack of recognition or “knowing me,” and environments that are designed for a business’s efficiency rather than the customers experience. This is why when we do get good service, we’re delighted. It’s the exception. With regard to banks, I have found that most people have found that their experience at different banks is, in fact, the same. They ultimately accept this as the “way things are.”
To use your restaurant example,if you had tried several restaurants in the area and found them to be pretty much the same, and had talked to other people and found their experience to be the same, you’d more often go to the most convenient as long as it met a minimum level of quality and service. Why would you travel further or go out of your way if the experience was going to be relatively the same? This is what people have come to believe about banks.
I’m not excusing people from taking the initiative to investigate – I agree with your point. But keep in mind you are clearly confident about money and your ability to make sound financial decisions (very admirable). Most people aren’t and as human beings we tend to avoid things that make us feel small.
What I would like to see from financial institutions? Encouragement, education and respect. A true dedication toward getting people out of debt and feeling confident about their finances. I do have to say how much I appreciate your comment about people’s behavior after we emerge from this situation. While the pundits describe this new “frugality” I don’t see it. We’re still spending at the same level we did in 2006/2007. Were we frugal then? I think not. The problem is a household balance sheet problem and what we’re seeing now is people dealing with their out-of-whack debt/asset ratio. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next couple years.
Thanks for the great discussion and viewpoint!
@Kent: You’re raising a lot of good points here, one of which relates to the notion of EXPECTATIONS. When the bar is set low, it’s easy (or easier) to exceed expectations. (Hate to say this, but this is what helps to make a lot of CUs look good). One thing, though: Don’t overestimate my confidence or ability re: making financial decisions. It’s the Mrs. who makes many of those decisions in the Shevlin HH (cuz she’s the one that CARES!)
Ha! I hear you – same in my household (and many, truth be told). It’s obvious you are astute, though. That makes it intellectually challenging to assess most household’s actions because you understand things to a degree that most don’t. I hope that came across the right way…because I put myself in the same camp. Having worked in the financial services industry for a number of years, there are things that just seem obvious or common sense to me (like living within your means), but when you spend time with folks who don’t think about money or money management as a part of their day-to-day lives, one sees a very different picture. The messiness of the human condition.
What a great discussion this is.
David, when you say “Marketing has nothing to do with making a customer care about a bank or credit union.” I disagree, but only somewhat, and have the research to back it up. Marketing’s first job is to INFORM people of the good work you do and the competitive advantages you have that will make the customer’s life easier – not have THEM do the investigative work. Ron has effectively covered the rest.
In response to your comment “The people in the branch, the support people in the back office, the lending team that meets with business customers, and the facilities personal all have a tough job to do and if they handle the customer experience exceptionally well, the door has been opened for a customer to begin to care. ”
I’ll respond by saying that is true ASSUMING you have the customer in the first place. The only factor more influential for people selecting a new FI is “fees for services.” Convenience/Location actually ranks third.
If you were suggesting you’ll get an abundance of new customers solely through word of mouth (and in fairness, I’m not sure you were), I enthusiastically disagree. “Where my friends/co-workers go” ranks 14th on a list of 16th decision factors for new FI customers.
It takes going above and beyond (or as you put it “exceptionally well”), not just good customer service, to get someone to talk positively about a FI, but oh, if you slip up! Word of mouth is a double-edged sword. The good news is positive comments from customers are more influential than negative ones. The bad news is people are often more willing to share bad experiences than good ones.
Ron, if you want to do a blog posting on this study, I’ll send you a copy gratis for editorial review.
There is likely much substance to what you argue, Ron. But, I do think something is afoot. Last year, we saw credit union memberships nationally go up by 2.3 percent (maybe more, since we haven’t yet seen the complete December numbers). That doesn’t seem like much — except it was the biggest annual growth in the past 10 years. Savings (deposits) grew too — by nearly 10 percent. That’s probably a “safe harbor” effect, and probably includes a lot of existing members. But member growth of 2.3 percent? That indicates, at least to me, that other consumers are seeing credit unions as a viable alternative to banks. They probably still have accounts at banks (big or otherwise), and may be just giving credit unions a try out (who knows?). I’ll leave that up to you marketing gurus to figure that out — PR flaks like me just report the numbers.
Wow, this is a great thread of insightful comments on a very, very challenging problem. I won’t try to pretend like I have an answer. In-fact, I doubt there is a single answer. I have four banking relationships – one I love, two I hate, and one I’m apathetic about. The only one I “care” about is the bank I love. And why? It’s because the CEO started the bank at the same time we started our business. He’s been a mentor for me for years – never too busy to see me and always returns my calls and emails. I wouldn’t DREAM of leaving that bank as my primary financial institution. I don’t have that relationship with the other institutions.
For each person I think the draw is different, but as some of you have stated, no marketing department can make people care about their money. Some of the typical things people use as their criteria for selecting a bank are branch location, ATM location, fees, personal relationships, online functionality, interest rates paid or earned and hours of operation. Years ago this list was shorter and you could probably rank it fairly easily with branch location being a clear leader. Today, the list of criteria keeps getting longer and it’s anyone’s guess what order someone might rank them in terms of importance.
I tend to think that when it comes to the retail banking customer, as time moves forward, physical locations and personal relationships unfortunately will diminish in importance. I don’t think that’s necessarily true when it comes to commercial relationships. But even in the case of commercial, the technology that customers demand create more and more distance between banker and account holder. We keep pushing them further out – and it’s what they want: drive-ups, ATMs, online banking & bill pay, remote capture – heck have you seen video banking in the lobby? Someone actually takes the time to get out of their car and walk in and we greet them with a pay-phone handset and tv screen?
My money says that in time account holders will gravitate to financial institutions – banks or credit unions – that can provide the BEST set of tools to make managing their money as easy, painless, cheap and FUN as possible. I’m not sure I’d want to be in the bank building business in 10 years because the bank branch that matters most to people younger than 30 lives online.
The bottom line, in my opinion, is that any individual will never become a true “member” without a sincere level of engagement–they will just remain a detached transactional customer (you can call it “member” with words but that doesn’t mean they feel a sense of membership). And nobody achieves a sincere level of engagement with something they are apathetic about. Thus, our number one job as financial leaders (not just as marketers) is to help people give a damn…and to do that we have to give them something that’s worth giving a damn about.
Is apathy the right word when so many people hate banks and banking?
@Jeffry Pilcher Your question, “is apathy the right word when so many people hate banking?” is a good one, and raises an important point. I can’t speak for Ron, but when I talk about apathy being the big problem, I’m talking more about “how strongly do I feel that XYZ financial institution’s brand resonates and is a good fit for me?” rather than “am I happy with the way financial institutions do business?” To your point, there are tons of people who passionately hate the way financial institutions do business. But there are very few people who have a strong opinion about whether a financial institution’s brand is a good fit or a bad fit for them. Most of them are indifferent (apathetic)–they think “a credit union is a credit union is a credit union…I’ll just go to whichever one is most convenient or has the best rates.” That’s the apathy I’m referring to–inability to make a choice with conviction.
@Niche and @Jeffry: Oh man. If we needed any proof that’s there’s no end to the number of opinions, and that no one is right or wrong….when I used the term apathy I was thinking — not of any caring about brands — but about the lack of caring about managing one’s financial life. There a lot of people who don’t create and manage budgets, figure out what the best checking account or credit card is for them, maximize/manage the points on the gazillion rewards programs they belong to, etc. In the context of this post, I wasn’t even thinking about brand attraction or even awareness.
Go back to the Apple example: In one respect, Apple has it easy: There are gazillions of people who are really gadgets, or computers, or cell phones. That’s not to say, of course, that Apple doesn’t do a great job of making people like their brand over others. But credit unions don’t have it that easy. Few people care how when a bank/CU introduces a new product. Ho hum.
It’s analogous to Coke and Pepsi in one respect. You would think that there are no two fiercer head-on competitors than those two firms. But what I witnessed a number of years ago (first hand, I might say, in a consulting engagement w/ a Pepsi bottler) is how the two firms COLLABORATED in South America. They were both looking to make inroads into rural Brazil. Did they fight about which brand tasted better, or any of the other things they claim about each other? NO. They knew job #1 was not to bash each other, but to build demand for soft drinks.
This is what I’m chiding CUs for. Quit worrying about big banks. Quit trying to convince everybody that you’re good, and they’re evil. The public cares about that — for NOW. It’s going to pass. Long term, the anti-bank sentiment will pass, and CUs won’t be able to ride this wave. They gotta get people more involved with managing their finances and caring about which FI they do business with. This has NOTHING to do with any one CU’s brand.
Interesting to hear a discussion about whether marketing’s job is to create awareness or caring. Getting the masses to care about a specific financial service is going to be damned difficult–financial stuff just isn’t exciting to most people. But if you can connect your financial product or service to something tangible in their lives, you can move them from apathy to caring pretty quickly.
In the abstract, people don’t care about car loans, but if they want/need a new car, they care–at least until they get what they want. Like it or not, financial products/services are just facilitators of other things, whereas Apple products (and gadget in general) create experiences all by themselves.
So the challenge is getting consumers to care about the facilitators as part and parcel with the end goals–i.e., you can’t have one without the other. For example, for our online financial planning service, we are constantly trying to promote the belief that planning is the critical first step to reaching your financial goals. If we can get consumers to buy in to this belief, they will care about planning because they care about their financial goals.
Our service is only a facilitator–but so is every other financial product/service. So the only way to be relevant to people is to make the connection in the consumer’s mind between our service (the facilitator) and the real goal (car/home/peace of mind).
This is a lot harder than what Apple has to do, if you ask me–but I agree with Ron, it’s still about creating caring, not awareness.