Marketing Tea Party by Ron Shevlin

One of the more entertaining things in the world of marketing is the ongoing battle among firms for metric supremacy. After all, who doesn’t want to come up with the metric that everyone else adopts as the de facto standard?

Add one more firm to the battle. Market research firm Millward Brown (MB) put out a press release which claimed that:

Amazon.com [is] the top performing brand in the U.S. based on trust and recommendation, the key ingredients to brand success, according to a new report entitled “Beyond Trust: Engaging Consumers in the Post-Recession World.” The study introduces TrustR, a new metric for understanding and strengthening the bond between consumers and brands.”

According to MB, “TrustR is calculated by looking at consumer responses to the questions ‘how trustworthy is this brand?’ and ‘would you recommend this brand?’ The scores are indexed and combined to reach a TrustR score.”

In other words, what MB did was take the severely flawed Net Promoter Score, simplify it to a yes/no question instead of a 10-point scale (thank god for that), and add another question about a poorly defined construct, trustworthiness.

And then proclaim their measure to be the key ingredients to brand success.

Was there any proof or evidence offered as to why this new measure would be superior to what’s already out there?

No. Even worse, however, is that the seeds of TrustR’s weaknesses are found right there in the press release, itself.

Among the firms ranked by TrustR, Toyota came in at #7. There’s a footnote in the press release, however, that states that the study was “conducted over the course of 2009, prior to Toyota’s recent recall.”

How reliable could this TrustR measure be, if, in the course of just a couple of weeks, a firm’s score could be so volatile as to necessitate this footnote?

Isn’t one of the benefits or attributes of having a “trusted brand” supposed to be the brand’s ability to withstand some setbacks like what Toyota is experiencing?

(BTW, I rented a car a couple of weeks ago. The agent asked me “Kia or Toyota?” and I thought to myself “wow, I can’t remember the last time I had to make a life or death decision.”)

What this really goes to show is that asking consumers about their perceptions or intentions (“trustworthiness” or “likelihood to recommend”) simply isn’t worth basing your management measurement structure on.

It’s why I continually urge marketers to adopt behavioral-driven metrics. That is, to determine which behaviors – beyond purchase – characterize a good, profitable customer, and to then develop a set of metrics that gauge how well they do in driving more of their customer base towards those behaviors.

The other thing that made me laugh at MB’s press release is their choice of report title: Beyond Trust.

It wasn’t good enough for MB to report on trust – oh no, now it’s “beyond” trust. As if trust is passe, and we should put it behind us. I don’t know about you, but I’d be very happy to know my clients trusted me. I don’t want to know what’s beyond trust.

And so the time has come again, my friends, for the Marketing Tea Party to trot out its favorite marketing metric — the Net Purchaser Score (you don’t even have to remember a new acronym!). We define NPS as:

Net Purchaser Score: The difference between the number of people who bought your product and the number of people who didn’t.

My non-scientific research shows that the Marketing Tea Party NPS:

1. Is highly correlated with revenue.
2. Measures behavior (not intention).
3. Encompasses all customers (not just a sample).
4. Directly impacts the bottom line (not indirectly).
5. Is simple!

I expect to make millions consulting to firms to help them calculate their new NPS score.

Let’s be honest: If someone ranked you #1 on a list, you’d be proud and flattered, right? (Assuming, of course, it wasn’t a list of the worst mass murderers or serial rapists). And you’d have to be an idiot to question the methodology that made you #1, right?

I am that idiot.

Technobabble 2.0 is a blog, written by Jonny Bentwood, that follows the IT industry analyst world, and it ranks (using TweetLevel) how influential, engaged, popular, and trusted analysts are on Twitter.

In the most recent ranking, out of 950+ analysts, I was ranked #1 on engagement (but nowhere near the top 10 on influence, which I guess means my Twitter followers are engaged with me, but don’t do what I tell them to).

It was great to be ranked #1 for engagement, but honestly, it raised a bunch of questions in my mind: Is this good (for me and for my business)? Is it OK that I’m engaging people but not influencing them? Am I really doing something right? Is this what I want from Twitter?

Mr. Bentwood praises me for how engaged I am with my Twitter community (I bet that there are at least a few people who follow me on Twitter that would like to inform Mr. Bentwood that he shouldn’t confuse being a snarky, smartass with being engaging).

But what I don’t get is how can any tool or anybody (I distinguish the two so that nobody thinks I’m accusing anybody of being a “tool”) determine that I’m engaged with my Twitter community?

You’d probably think that I would go and show my boss my shiny new #1 ranking, but I haven’t (and won’t). Because I know he’d ask “great, but what has that done for business?”

And I don’t have a good answer to that good question.

I’m sure that my Twittering may have contributed to increased awareness of my firm among a few people. But quantifying that? Impossible.

I’ve been asked, recently, to speak at two different conferences by a couple of people I often tweet with (one who I’ve met in person, the other I haven’t). Would I have been asked to speak if this hadn’t been the case? Possibly.

I’ve come to realize, though, that the benefit of tweeting – for me – isn’t quantifiable. The benefit is in the ability to CONNECT.

A recent article on MarketingProfs said

“Salespeople have long known that establishing rapport with a customer can help close a sale.”

I think this is what I’m trying to do with Twitter – establish rapport.

Thanks to Twitter…

…there are people who I’ve never met in person (and, come to think of it, have never been properly introduced to) that I wouldn’t hesitate to pick up the phone and call and ask them to participate in some research I’m doing, or ask their opinion on something.

…there are people that I’ve only met in person maybe once or twice but that I’m more comfortable communicating with than I am with some of the people I work with everyday.

…there are some people who probably  “know” me better than some of the people that I work with everyday do. (This can backfire. I once sent @stormtwitter an email telling her how much I appreciated being mentioned in the acknowledgements section of her book, but because of the way I worded the email, she wasn’t sure if I was being sarcastic or not. OUCH.)

It never ceases to amaze me that there are people who herald Twitter as some amazing innovation and advancement in the world of marketing. Yet, they use it to do what marketers have traditionally done in other channels: Push out marketing messages.

If that’s what they want to use Twitter for, that’s fine. That’s their choice. I’m not saying they’re wrong for using the tool that way. Simply saying that I think they’re missing an opportunity to do something that marketers have found very difficult to do in the past: Connect with people.

So, in the end, I don’t care how the engagement score was calculated. I’m going to shut up and take that #1 ranking on engagement.  I’ve realized I don’t use Twitter to influence – that’s what this blog and the reports I write for my employer are for. If TweetLevel thinks I’m doing a good at connecting with people, I’m good with that. Thanks for the ranking, Jonny.

The other day, for the godonlyknowshowmanyth time, I heard yet another Gen Yer prattle on about how collaborative his generation is.

Oh spare me. When you’re at the bottom of the org chart, everybody is collaborative. My g-g-g-generation was no less collaborative when we in our 20s (or so I deceive myself into thinking, just as Gen Yers deceive themselves).

Now I see that McKinsey has defined 12 collaboration types like the “administrator” who “repeatedly executes a standard or well-defined process” and the “investigator” who “examines facts and information to determine cause and effect.”

McKinsey says that “to improve the productivity of collaboration workers, we must understand the details of how their work gets done. “

I have a lot of respect for McKinsey, but this is hogwash for a few reasons:

1. Twelve segments aren’t manageable. Study the 12 collaboration types. Go back to work, and a few hours later, write down how many of the types and their definitions you remember. I doubt I’d remember more than one or two (although I’m sure that Gen Yers, with their super powers, will remember 10 or 11 of the types — oh no, wait, 12 different Gen Yers will each remember one type, and then collaborate to put the total list together). I don’t care what type of segmentation you’re talking about, 12 segments is 8 or 9 too many.

2. No one fits into just one segment. How many of you don’t — during some part of your day — execute a well-defined process and examine facts and information to determine cause and effect (although I’m sure that Gen Yers in demonstrate traits of all 12 types — all at once, every minute of the day). How can a manager use the segmentation if no one is in any one category?

3. There are more important things to understand. McKinsey is just plain wrong (and this where the Gen Yers, who pat themselves on the back for being collaborative, miss the point). It’s not that important to understand how the work gets done, nor is it that important to be collaborative. Senior executives don’t know — and don’t care — how work gets done. They care that it does get done, gets done right, on time, and at the appropriate expense. When this doesn’t happen, they care about fixing the problem.

I can picture the following conversation:

Senior exec: Why the hell isn’t marketing and finance working together to improve the reporting of marketing ROI?

McKinsey: Well, Sally in finance is a Counselor, who collects information and provides counsel based on past experience and new insights.  She needs whiteboarding and Wiki tools to collaborate effectively. Tom in marketing is an Investigator, and he needs podcasts and document/file sharing technologies.

Senior exec: F*ck that. Fix the g*ddamn problem, or I’ll fire you, Sally, and Tom.

If fixing the problem requires more — or better — collaboration, then what managers need is a guide to understanding what prevents collaboration.

To McKinsey’s credit, they planted the seeds of this guide with their segmentation. For example, what may be preventing effective collaboration could be the “lack of a well-defined process” or “inadequate information available to determine cause and effect.”

And what Gen Yers need to understand is that “being collaborative” is nice, but no big deal. What’s important is understanding why people aren’t collaborating when they need to be, and what can be done to foster collaboration when it’s needed.

You know why Gen Y thinks they’re so collaborative? Because Boomers have designed the academic environments that Gen Yers have grown up in to foster (if not force) collaboration.

But business organizations are different. Org structures, pay/bonus incentives, departmental goals, etc., all create roadblocks or disincentives to collaboration. Being collaborative means diddly-squat.

I’m often involved in the hiring decisions in my firm. When I’m interviewing someone (Gen Yer or not), I could care less if s/he is collaborative. What I care about is finding out how they get others to collaborate when goals and objectives aren’t aligned, or when who-knows-what other barriers to collaboration exist.

On second thought, that last sentence was a load of crap. I don’t even believe it myself. All I care about is whether or not the candidate can get sh*t done. That might involve being collaborative, it might not.

Gen Xers, Boomers, Seniors: I look forward to seeing your comments on this post. Gen Yers: I’ll understand if you decide to collaborate on your responses.

The headline “Americans Trust Soft Drink Advertising” caught my eye, so I clicked on the link. The article really grabbed my attention when I saw a sub-header proclaiming that that “financial services companies have the least trusted ads.”

The news that banks are suffering from a lack of public trust is hardly new news. But what we continually see — and that I’ve have railed against in the past — are advertising efforts on the part of financial services companies trying to rebuild trust. I have argued before — and will continue to argue — that you can not advertise your way to trust.

And when I saw the sub-header, I thought “Aha! Proof for my argument.”

But, alas, in this case, the research is simply not worth hanging my hat on.

At first glance of the data, it looks like 34% of survey respondents said that they trust soft drink advertising, 22% trust fast food ads, 18% trust pharma ads, 14% trust car ads, and 13% trust financial services ads.

But when I saw the note on the chart that “percentages may not add to 100 because of rounding”, I wondered why would they need that message. Then I realized: The respondents were basically asked “of the five categories, which do you trust the most?” (Add up the five numbers).

Do you see a problem here?

Assume for a moment that there were 100 kids in your high school graduating class. Your GPA was 99.6 (out of 100). Pretty good, eh? I’d say so. But further assume that that GPA only put you in fifth place (the four nerds who did better than you had 99.7, 99.8, 99.9, and 100 averages, respectively).

Were you the worst performer? Out of the top 5, yes. Did you do poorly? No.

This is the problem with the aforementioned research study. Financial services ads were NOT deemed not trustworthy. They were simply RANKED the least trustworthy out of the five categories that the researcher asked about.

Which raises a whole host of questions: Why did they choose those categories? Why didn’t they ask about other categories? Why didn’t they simply ask how trustworthy each category’s ads are? And…Can I have some of what they were smoking when they designed this study?

Does this mean that I think bank ads are trustworthy? No. But I can’t conclude from the data that they’re not trustworthy.

People don’t trust banks (today). That’s a given. But it’s wrong to simply assume that because there’s a lack of trust in banks, that people find the ads not trustworthy.

Despite the flawed research, I’m not so sure what people were thinking when they responded to the study.

You mean to tell me that the ads from Taco Bell, which attempt to position its fast food as a “healthy choice”, are trustworthy?

Or that pharma ads like the ones from Enzyte are trustworthy?

How about the “tone-deaf” ads from Pepsi?

The ads from financial services aren’t any less trustworthy than any other industry’s ads. [Cut to Don Henley's Dirty Laundry: "Kick 'em when they're up, kick 'em when they're down....."]

I know the secret to being a great manager, and I’m going to share it with you, in this blog post, right now. No need to spend $29.95 on Leadership Lessons From Larva, or whatever other leadership book is hot right now.

What’s the secret?

Well, hold on. I feel obligated to tell you how it is I come to know this secret. It isn’t from my being a great manager (duh). Instead, it comes more from my being a lousy subordinate (double duh). In my 25 years of being a lousy subordinate, I’ve worked for a lot of managers, and I’ve finally discovered the difference between the good and the great.

What is that difference?

Not so fast. I just want everyone to know that in no way am I criticizing any of the multitude of bosses I’ve had over the past 25 years. I’ve been incredibly fortunate. I can only think of one who I would consider to be a lousy boss (and he’s way too wrapped up in his own blog and twittering to read my blog). In fact, it’s really the opposite — it’s the realization of what some of those bosses did right (and may not have even realized it).

So what’s the secret to being a great manager?

Leveraging people’s strengths.

That’s it in a nutshell. The longer version goes like this: Leveraging people’s strengths instead of obsessing over trying to get them to overcome their weaknesses.

Getting people to overcome their weaknesses doesn’t work. Trust me, I know this firsthand (so does my wife — she’s been trying for nearly 30 years now).

I don’t know what it’s like in other countries, but in the U.S., our whole employee evaluation system is oriented towards finding weaknesses, problem areas, or more euphemistically — improvement opportunities. People’s strengths are given a cursory glance, and it’s on to the litany of things they could and should be doing better.

There are generally two reasons why I’m not good at some of the things my boss(es) want me to be better at: 1) I don’t like to do those things, and 2) I’m simply not wired to do those things well.

There are, however, some things I am good at. And the best managers I’ve had recognized those things and found ways to help me focus on those things and maximize my output on them. And not let me get dragged down by the things I’m not good at — and will never be.

Here’s the problem with this secret: It’s not very easy to implement.

The reason for this isn’t just that our system isn’t oriented towards it. It’s that it isn’t easy to determine exactly what people’s strengths are. It’s bad enough that many managers don’t really know their people well enough to make this determination. But many people don’t truly know what their own strengths and weaknesses are.

Here’s another challenge: If someone isn’t good at understanding other people, doesn’t want to take the time to know what their strengths/weaknesses are, etc., then — by my own logic — they won’t be able to overcome this weakness, and become a great manager. In other words, the very principle that separates the good from great managers precludes some managers from being great in the first place.

Do I really believe that people can’t improve on their weaknesses? Not really. But it takes work, and it takes focus. Simply giving me a list of the things I’m supposed to do better — with the promise that it might get me some raise and/or promotion — won’t work. And I don’t think it works with other people, either. Great managers pick their spots. They get people to focus on the ONE thing that — if they truly improve on it — will move the needle on their personal and the company’s performance.

In the meantime, my manager will just have to put up with the fact that I’m a lousy subordinate. Sorry.

Having spent the better part of last week in Arizona, staring at cactuses in the desert, I have this inexplicable urge to flip somebody the middle finger.  I also have a more explicable desire to share some of the things I’ve learned and gleaned from spending the better part of a week with a bunch of credit union CEOs and their board chairs at the CUES CEO Symposium.

It was my job to lead the CEOs/Board Chairs through a 3-hour session on What’s Next For Credit Unions? (Piece of cake, right? Yeah, right). The session was repeated three times, as the total set of attendees was split into three groups representing small, medium, and large credit unions.

One of the key ideas I tried to get across to the CEOs/BCs was that their biggest challenge looking ahead wasn’t competition from big banks, nor any set of regulations that may come about. For the most part, I think they agreed with me on this.

What I did assert was their biggest challenge was consumers’ lack of interest in managing their financial lives (the apathy I wrote about in a previous post). This point didn’t garner universal acceptance. Let me try to summarize the way the discussion (typically) went:

Me: People don’t care enough about their managing their financial lives to make more informed choices. Consumer apathy is credit union’s biggest challenge to overcome.

Them: No way. People don’t care that much about managing their financial lives and never will. We simply have to be the most convenient, most easy-to-do-business-with financial institution.

Me: So how do you get that message — that you’re more convenient and easier to do business with — out to more people?

Them: We have to educate people on the credit union difference.

Me: Why hasn’t that education effort been more successful in the past?

Them: Because people don’t care enough about managing their financial lives to make more informed choices.

Me: [SILENCE]

Gotta give them credit, though. They did something you probably couldn’t get me to do: Shut up.

So then I’d ask them to raise their hand if their credit union was looking to lower the average age of its member base by attracting Gen Yers. Most (if not all) raised their hands.

Me: Gen Yers are so overrated. It takes about 15 of them to bring you the money I (as a Baby Boomer) could bring you, and if you get me, guess what? You get my Gen Yer’s business, because she puts her money where I tell her to.

Them: But the younger generation isn’t locked into relationships already, and if we can get them now, we can hopefully make them members for life.

Me: Were the members you attracted 10, 20, 30 years members for life?

Them: Some, not all. Not enough.

Me: Then why will this generation be members for life when previous ones weren’t?

Them: [SILENCE]

Me: By the way, know why my Gen Yer puts her money where I tell her to?

Them: Why?

Me: Because — like many others in her generation — she doesn’t care enough about choosing between financial providers, so she’s more than happy to let me (or, to be more specific, her mother) tell her who to choose.

[Some of] Them: Yeah, actually I have a couple of kids in there 20s, and they wouldn’t be with a credit union if it weren’t for me.

Me: Yep. According to research I’ve done, more than four in ten Gen Yers won’t consider a credit union for future financial services needs because they either don’t know what a CU is, or they say they don’t belong to one now, and don’t anticipate doing so. So how are you going to fix that?

Them: Gen Yers want to do business with firms that want to do business with Gen Yers, and give them good service. The big banks have the attitude you described (i.e., “it takes 15 Gen Yers to bring the assets of 1 Baby Boomer”).  We’re going to target them and show we’re different.

Me: That’ll work — with some Gen Yers. The 25% who care enough about their financial lives to make an informed choice. Which really isn’t a whole lot different situation, when you think about, than when you went after the 25% of Gen Xers who cared about managing their financial lives, or the 25% of the Boomers who cared, or the 25% of Seniors who cared. What’s going to be different this time around?

Them: [SILENCE]

Me: [SILENCE] [END OF CONVERSATION]

If I’m not mistaken, somebody once defined insanity as doing the same over and over again, but expecting different results.

I would estimate that about one-third of the CEOs at the conference believe that their future success is tied to their ability to develop and sell competitive or superior financial products. The other two-thirds have the mindset that it’s all about educating more people about the “credit union difference.”

Credit unions’ marketing to Gen Yers is certainly different than the marketing efforts of the past targeted at Gen Xers, Boomers, and Seniors.

But the marketing always changes.

What fundamentally isn’t changing is the product and the business model. Oh sure, a few more bells and whistles are added to the checking account, and new channels to access those accounts are created. But everybody catches up pretty quick to any advance in products and channels, so the end result is: Checkmate.

There was a lot more to the conversation. But I’m not sure you want to hear how uninterested many of the CEOs were in discussing marketing, in general, or building new marketing capabilities, more specifically.

I’ve been having a recurring nightmare about what the world of banking will look like post-apocalypse.

If by “apocalypse” you think I mean post-financial crisis, ha ha, no. That’s not the apocalypse. The end of free checking? Now that’s the apocalypse.

Banks have relied on free checking accounts for a while now to attract new customers. OK, to be exact, they’ve relied on what they call free checking accounts. Because it seems to me they’ve been anything but free. Oh sure, there’s no monthly fee for the account, but the people who open them still end up paying overdraft fees, ATM fees, and who-knows-what-else fees.

I say “who-knows-what-else” because, well, I don’t know. My checking account isn’t free, but because I don’t overdraw, don’t use ATMs that I shouldn’t be using, and keep way too much in the bank across a number of accounts, my bank wouldn’t dare charge me any fees. So I’m really not clear which is really the free account, and which will go by the wayside in the near future.

But it does seem possible that the so-called free accounts will be discontinued — and, in fact, a number of banks have already changed their product line.

As a result, there’s a lot of discussion about what’s next and what banks will do in this post-apocalyptic, post-free checking world.

Personally, I’m not sure why there’s so much interest and speculation.

Despite claims that it’s really hard to switch banks, most banks I talk to still tell me their attrition rates are in the double digits. And this doesn’t even count what one bank calls “silent attrition” — accounts that don’t close, but see their balances and activity dwindle to next to nothing.

So the reality has been that free checking has hardly been the solution to anything, except possibly attracting new accounts that might not stick around for very long.

In 2008 I analyzed the site visitor data from FindABetterBank.com for an Aite Group report I wrote. What I discovered was that the 4,000 consumers who had visited the site fell into one of three buckets: Those looking for accounts with: 1) No fees; 2) Superior technology-based features (i.e., online banking, bill pay, etc.);  and 3) The best interest rates (and who were willing and able to keep $5000 or more in their accounts to earn those rates).

This might not seem earth shattering, but walk into any bank branch, ask about checking accounts, and see if the person you talk to is able to explain anything but the free account.

The biggest problem banks have in this post-apocalyptic world is that they don’t know how to sell anything except their free account. If that goes away, what are they going to do?

That’s where my nightmare comes in. My nightmare is like that Bizarro Jerry episode from Seinfeld where there’s this parallel universe and three characters the exact opposite of Jerry, Kramer, and George.

My nightmare is bizarro banking. Except that in this parallel universe, the characters the banks meet aren’t their opposites, but an image of what they will become. Namely: The telcos.

Yes, in my nightmare of post-apocalyptic banking, banks adopt the tactics of telcos, and seek to reduce their attrition problem by locking customers in with contractual arrangements and promos.

Open up a new account, get your fees waived for six months, and agree to a 2 year term. Then after the six months are up, and the fees are about to kick in, the banks will tempt you with an offer to extend the fee waiver by another six months if you open up a savings account or another checking account, and extend your contract by another year. And so on.

Hey, if you can’t earn loyalty, you might as well buy it.

The problem, here, comes down to value. Or more specifically, lack thereof. Perhaps this is overly idealistic, but I was thinking that it might be nice if banks turned to providing more value to the customer relationship as a way to build loyalty, instead of searching for contractual ways to lock people in. Maybe it’s just me, but the last thing I want it is to deal with more firms like the telcos.

I guess the question is — in order to transform my nightmare into a pleasant dream — what could banks do to add more value? Plenty. Just not enough space here to get into it.

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 got an email this morning from Hilton Honors letting me know that I could redeem points for a charitable contribution to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to help earthquake victims in Haiti.

On one hand, it’s a great idea to let people use their rewards points to help charitable causes.

But on the other hand….

….The email notified me that 10,000 of my points would result in a $25 contribution to the above named charities.

So much for the great idea.

Ten thousand points is almost enough to get me a free night’s stay at a Hilton Hotel. If we assume I need 15,000 points and that a hotel room goes for $150, then — to me — those 10,000 points are worth about $100.

So what — as a Hilton customer — am I left to believe here?

Simply that Hilton is more concerned in finding cheap ways to burn up their rewards liabilities than it is in helping the people of Haiti.

Marketers looking to participate in relief better make damn sure their motivations are in the right place.

Back in 1997, a colleague of mine at the firm I worked for at the time wrote a report called The Third Skill. The premise of the report was that, while there were people in firms with marketing skills, and other people with IT skills, what firms needed in order to capitalize on the emerging New Media opportunities were people with a third skill: The ability to combine marketing and IT.

Roll to clock forward to 2010, and while the term new media might not be commonly used, interactive or online marketing skills — while not quite a science — are commonly found in many organizations.

What we now need is a fourth skill. The ability to combine marketing, IT, new media, and……and what? I’m struggling to find the right word to capture the needed skill set. I’m tempted to just plug in the word “social.” But that’s too broad a term.

What firms need now are people who can combine an understanding of marketing, technology, the online channel and things like customer service and community building. I’m struggling to come up with a label because customer service and community building are separate skills in and of themselves.

The new skill boils down to knowing how to talk to people and how to get people to talk with each other.

If you think marketers have this skill today, you’re wrong. Marketers  (if they’re good) know how to craft marketing messages. That’s not a conversation.

Customer service people (if they’re good) know how to talk to people, but that doesn’t mean they’re good at building community, at marketing, or at understanding technology.

There’s a fourth skill that’s needed in firms today, and while some (if not many) firms are experimenting with — or even committing whole hog to — social media, the fact that they’re using social media doesn’t mean they have the skills internally to capitalize on the promise of social media.

What I’m hoping to do with this post is shift the discussion. Personally, I’m really tired of hearing all the preaching that firms need to adopt social media, create social CRM strategies, or whatever. I’m also seen enough links to stories that tell me that YadaYada Corporation launched a Facebook page or is on Twitter.

I want to know how firms are driving bottom line results. I want to know how they’re changing their organizational structures, position descriptions and staffing levels. I want to know how firms are creating the fourth skill.