Author: Drew Neisser

I’ve been a loyal Citibank customer for over 20 years. Not for any really good reason. It’s just been inconvenient to switch. Turns out, most people stay with their banks for convenience and only switch when they change jobs or neighborhoods. Except, of course, when the bank does something really annoying. A fellow Renegade told me the story of how Wachovia had been his long-time bank until the one time he really need them they failed miserably. He went to the bank to pick up a cashier’s check on the day he was supposed to close on a new house but the bank’s computer system was down and they couldn’t provide the needed check. They basically said, “you are nobody until our system comes back.” Not surprisingly, he switched banks the next week.

In his book “The Ultimate Question”, Fred Reicheld advises customer-centric companies to avoid penalizing your best customers and to stop with the annoying extra charges. For example, airlines continue to penalize the business traveler who basically keeps them in the air while rewarding the infrequent flyer with the cheapest possible fares. I noted in an earlier post how thrilled I was with Embassy Suites for providing a free business center which including free printing paper. (On a side note, when I stayed in the Aladdin Hotel in Vegas recently, they even charged for receiving a package for me!)

Banks have numerous ways to enhance their product offerings and reduce the everyday annoyances. Commerce offers free change counting machines and is open seven days a week so you can bank at your convenience. Bank of America has its “keep the change” program which is complicated to explain but results in up to $500/year in extra savings. HSBC offers the BankCab which provides free rides to HSBC customers in Manhattan (a Renegade program and the reason my family keeps accounts at HSBC.) And there are many more examples including Citi’s Thank You program (which they don’t really push to existing customers sending the unfortunate message that new customers are more important.)

So back to Citi and me. A few months ago, I wrote a lot of checks and unknowingly (okay, I admit to not balancing my check book on a daily basis) tapped into my overdraft account. The idea of overdraft is to protect busy/distracted people like me from bouncing checks. The good news is that I didn’t bounce a check. The bad news is that Citi charges interest the second you tap into your overdraft account. Fair enough. Banks have the right to charge for a loan. But two days later when I deposited enough money to cover the overdraft I thought all was well. Wrong again, interest breath! Turns out, Citi doesn’t automatically transfer money from your checking account into your overdraft account. By the time I got my monthly statement, I had racked up quite an interest charge. Annoyed I decided to call Citibank and discuss this. Naturally I spoke to someone in Bangalore about my accounts here in New York. My argument was “you had the money, overdraft accounts have no other purpose than to protect checks from bouncing so why wouldn’t you automatically transfer the money?” His ever so polite answer was “sorry sir, you have to transfer the money yourself.” So I asked “is the interest you earn really worth losing a customer?” His answer, again ever so polite was “sorry sir, there is nothing I can do.” Well, there was something I could do. Find a new bank.

About a month ago I had lunch with a friend who had just joined First Republic Bank. We started tallking about banks and I mentioned my annoying experience with Citi. She noted that First Republic is really a “customer friendly” bank. For example, they automatically transfer money from the overdraft account into the checking account (instantly solving my pet peeve). First Republic also reimburses cash machine fees for withdrawals from any ATM all over the world. Ready to move, my soon to be banker then noted that First Republic would even send over an intern to populate my online account with payees from my Citi account to make the transition smoother. Sold. So long Citi. Hello First Republic.

I spent a couple of days at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month mainly with our long-time client Panasonic. Their booth was rich with cool new products including their remarkable 103″ Plasma TV which is bigger than my first New York apartment. One of the side rooms in the Panasonic booth showcased a high-end surround sound system created with recording wiz Elliot Shiner–each of five jazz musicians including Shiner played on their own plasma so you were completed surrounded visually and aurally. This was definitely an engaging experience.

Right around the corner from the Shiner experience was a small section that highlighted Matsushita Electric’s (Panasonic parent company) environmental efforts including the elimination of lead from all their TV’s. With everyone seemingly buying new flat-screens, it is easy to imagine tons of old tubes hitting the dumps. This is not a pretty picture given all the toxins including lead that used to be inside TVs. According to the Business Week article I mentioned yesterday, Matsushita is producing “state of the art green products” and “eliminated 96% of the most toxic substances in its global operations.” Matsushita has not made a huge deal out of this approach but I suspect those that really care will find out and be more favorably inclined to buy Panasonic instead of a less eco-friendly competitor. Certainly makes me feel good about working with them.

I was doing my usual Sunday night search for blog topics when I fell upon the cover story of this week’s Business Week called Beyond the Green Corporation. You can imagine my excitement after reading the headline: “Imagine a world in which eco-friendly and socially responsible practices actually help a company’s bottom line. It’s closer than you think.” The first couple of paragraphs focus on the recent MFG efforts of Unilever:

Under conventional notions of how to run a conglomerate like Unilever, CEO Patrick Cescau should wake up each morning with a laserlike focus: how to sell more soap and shampoo than Procter & Gamble Co. (PG ) But ask Cescau about the $52 billion Dutch-British giant’s biggest strategic challenges for the 21st century, and the conversation roams from water-deprived villages in Africa to the planet’s warming climate.

The world is Unilever’s laboratory. In Brazil, the company operates a free community laundry in a São Paulo slum, provides financing to help tomato growers convert to eco-friendly “drip” irrigation, and recycles 17 tons of waste annually at a toothpaste factory. Unilever funds a floating hospital that offers free medical care in Bangladesh, a nation with just 20 doctors for every 10,000 people. In Ghana, it teaches palm oil producers to reuse plant waste while providing potable water to deprived communities. In India, Unilever staff help thousands of women in remote villages start micro-enterprises. And responding to green activists, the company discloses how much carbon dioxide and hazardous waste its factories spew out around the world.

The article notes a number of other companies who are “doing well by doing good.” I will get to some of those others in later articles this week. Suffice it to say that if you aren’t thinking about Marketing for Good yet, it’s probably time. Rest assured, your competitors are.

Sometimes a good laugh is just what the doctor ordered especially if you are watching your team lose to a team they coulda shoulda beaten. So when I saw the Bud Light “rubber floors” ad again two weekends ago, I made a note. This was an ad I wanted to watch again. If you haven’t seen it, the spot features a couple of twenty-something guys discovering the virtues of newly installed rubber floors. Initially, they use the floor to distribute beers via expertly executed bounce passes. Later on, they perfect the art of remote control bouncing. And ultimately, much to the chagrin of PETA, an overly excited dog ends up bouncing out of the apartment over the head of the arriving female guest. It’s all in good fun.

Part of the appeal of this spot is that perfecting a bounce pass of practically any object is totally a guy thing. Up until I got married, my buddies and I would toss around anything that moved, starting first with direct passes and then moving to the bounce off the floor, the walls, the ceiling and ultimately any available piece of furniture. Rubber floors are the logical (if improbable) next step and I guarantee you this spot inspired lots of exploratory visits to the tile department of Home Depot. Rubber floors are a fantasy fulfilled making the humor hit home. So next time you’re up, bounce me a Bud Light.

At Renegade’s holiday party last month, one of the competing “saw-rorities” was Delta Delta Rho and their “rush” activity was DDR. DDR (Dance Dance Revolution for the uninitiated) is a video game that requires players to dance in step to the beat of the video. Regardless of how good one is keeping up with the tune (I stunk!), you are guaranteed to work up a sweat playing. Unlike most video games that only wear out your thumbs and wrists, DDR is closer to an aerobics class requiring vigorous leg and arm movements. (On a side note, Delta Delta Row was eclipsed by competing “saw-rority” Alpha Sigma Sigma whose rush activity featured the unusual art of butt painting–hmmm).

So what you might ask does DDR have to do with Marketing for Good? Lots. With food companies under fire for “making kids fat” it should be no surprise that some are looking for ways to get kids off their tushies before/after meals. Burger King announced last month that they were partnering with Konami to promote DDR. Here’s a portion of that release:

“Dance Dance Revolution and BURGER KING® restaurants will get in the groove this holiday season, as we promote fitness to our youth in fun and exciting ways,” said Catherine Fowler, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. “Children can enjoy a BK(TM) Kids Meal that includes smart menu choices such as low fat milk and apple sauce and then get motivated to dance the afternoon away by receiving a one-of-a-kind DDR premium.”

Burger King Corporation will support the program with a fully-integrated marketing campaign that includes television advertising, in-restaurant merchandising, custom DDR themed Kids Meal bags and cups, and an online micro site at www.bk.com/dance.

Though BK’a motivation is transparent, the idea makes a lot of sense. Speaking from experience, DDR is real exercise and if more kids spent an hour a day playing the game, fewer kids would be obese even if they regularly consumed mass quantities of burgers and fries. Of course I’d like to see the fast food houses serve up “better for you” fare but I’m not so idealistic as to think that American kids are ready to exchange their fries for carrots or that American parents have the guts to turn down their kids request for fast food in the first place. DDR is at least a worthy counterbalance to a fast food crazy world.

Not every Marketing for Good idea is a big idea nor a new idea. That said, when two brands more famous for Spring Break antics and cosmetic approaches get together to promote female “empowerment through education” it is worth noting. According to today’s PromoXtra:

MTV and Maybelline New York have launched a program that will award a $25,000 scholarship to a female student that best embodies the theme of empowerment through education. A contest encourages young women to submit a 500-word essay on what education means to them, how it has made a difference in their lives and what they would do with the $25,000 scholarship prize. The winner will be showcased live on MTV during TRL @ Your School Week in April. The contest will be promoted on both MTV and MTV.com. The deadline for entries is Feb. 11. Participants can enter at Maybelline.MTV.com.

I will be interested in tracking how much promotional support this program actually receives. Sometimes brands simply pay lip service to scholarship promotions like this one just so they can generate good will with their retail partners. We’ll see.