Marketing trends

PNC is dubbing itself “boring” in a new national advertising campaign.

Amid recent turbulence in the banking industry, the Pittsburgh-based bank is “focused on being reliable and trustworthy," CEO Bill Demchak said in a March news release. 

“In a frenetic industry that sometimes chases shiny objects, we've grown our business by focusing on the essential financial needs of customers, patiently nurturing relationships over generations and delivering results,” Demchak said in the release. “We believe this ‘boring’ approach positions us extremely well for growth opportunities on the horizon.”

In the first TV spot of PNC’s marketing campaign, which the bank created with ad agency Arnold Worldwide, actor Chris Diamantopoulos proclaims, “Boring is the jumping-off point for all the un-boring things we do,” such as vacations or early retirement.  

Boring is “smart, dependable and steady — all words you want from your bank,” he says during the 60-second commercial. PNC “strives to be boring with your money — the pragmatic, calculated kind of boring.”

Actions such as saving and investing may not be “thrilling,” but they can pay off, Alex Overstrom, head of PNC’s retail banking unit, said in the release.

“Most customers don’t want a roller-coaster for a bank,” Paul McAdam, senior director of banking and payments intelligence at J.D. Power, said in an email. “They want security, reliability, ease, friendliness and fairness. Supporting these ideas will be especially important if the U.S. experiences an economic downturn.”

Still, banks have faced increased competition from fast-moving fintechs, and the campaign could pose risks.

“To many people, the word ‘boring’ is interpreted as meaning dull, not interesting, mundane, not value-add,” McAdam said. “The PNC campaign is challenging customers to think about the meaning of ‘boring’ differently, and not all customers will be able to make that connection.”

But PNC isn’t alone in embracing the humdrum label. Fifth Third executives, too, have said “boring is good” during a recent conference appearance, Bloomberg reported.  

PNC, with about $562 billion in assets, is scouting for acquisitions, Demchak suggested during the bank’s January earnings call. He wants to see PNC ascend to the next level, so it’s viewed as a ubiquitous brand that garners the support giant banks receive in times of crisis, he said. 

“We are a natural player in the consolidation of an industry where scale matters,” Demchak said during the call. 

PNC, which has about 2,300 branches across the country, plans to open about 100 new locations and renovate roughly 1,200 existing locations through 2028, the bank said in February.

Bank of New York Mellon is adopting BNY as its new brand name, as the company aims to simplify its image in the marketplace, the oldest U.S. bank announced in June.

BNY Mellon updated its logo to include a modern font and a redefined arrow in a teal color that precedes the all-capitals name. Some of the bank’s division names will be shortened to BNY Investments, BNY Wealth and BNY Pershing.

However, the company will continue to operate under its legal name, The Bank of New York Mellon Corp.

“These changes complement the company’s evolution as a leading global financial services company,” Natalie Sunderland, BNY’s global head of marketing and communications, said in a statement. “The updated brand conveys trust, resilience and innovation, and helps us align the full breadth of our offerings and capabilities under one brand, to improve familiarity with who we are and all that we do for our clients.”

The brand and logo will be deployed across the company, effective immediately, with some revisions forthcoming over the next 12 months, the bank said.

The lender has introduced new branded merchandise, such as sweatshirts, to accompany the launch and also revealed the all-capitals, three-letter name across its major offices, according to Reuters.

Established 240 years ago by Alexander Hamilton, BNY has evolved into a bank overseeing nearly $50 trillion in assets while serving clients in more than 100 markets. The bank rebranded in 2007 when the Bank of New York and Pittsburgh-based Mellon Bank merged. 

“Though we have long been known as both trusted and resilient, to exist and thrive for more than two centuries has also required a continuous focus on innovation,” CEO Robin Vince wrote in a memo seen by Reuters.

The rebranding is not an attempt to erase the firm's history or reflect a diminished commitment to its future in Pittsburgh, company representatives told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 

Pittsburgh is the home of an artificial intelligence hub the lender built two years ago.

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By SOCi

SOCi’s Consumer Behavior Index (CBI) asks U.S. consumers to weigh in on their practices and preferences when interacting on and offline with local businesses. The survey asked 1,002 consumers across the U.S. about:

• The sites and apps they use to research and discover local businesses
• The peer feedback about businesses that consumers both use and provide
• The importance of open lines of communication between customers and local businesses
• Consumer feelings about AI in local marketing

As anticipated, the consumer input we’ve collected suggests some clear action items for local businesses and financial services marketers who want to nurture positive relationships with their clients. And who doesn’t? So, let’s review the top takeaways from the 2024 CBI.

Takeaway #1: Consumers depend on online profiles

The Findings

Our U.S. consumers told us that they frequently conduct online searches for local businesses, with 80% saying they do so at least once a week and 32% searching every day or even multiple times a day. Though restaurants, grocery stores, and retail stores are the most popular categories for online search, shoppers look online for local businesses of all kinds, including financial services companies. In fact, one in five consumers we surveyed researched banks near them in the last 30 days. 

Consumers mostly find online profiles on sites and apps like Google Maps and Facebook to be helpful and informative, with nearly 99% reporting that online tools for local search are either “moderately satisfactory” or “highly satisfactory.” 

Only 15% of consumers say they frequently encounter inaccurate information about local businesses online. However, the impact of bad information is stark. When asked what they would do if they visited a store whose online profile says it’s open, only to find that the business is closed, the largest block of consumers, 47%, said they would look for another business.

The action item

Our findings send a clear signal to local marketers — consumers need to be able to find accurate and up-to-date local business information. Consumers have been trained to expect that businesses of all kinds, including financial firms, will be highly available online and will provide helpful, accurate information that helps them make informed decisions. 

Takeaway #2: Shifting search preferences across generations

The findings

In July 2022, a Google executive unveiled the surprising finding, based on internal research, that 40% of Gen Z consumers would rather use Instagram or TikTok than Google when looking for a place to have lunch. Whether it’s restaurants or other local businesses, this marked a generational transformation in local. Our findings indicate that, for the most part, consumers still think of search as the primary local channel, with 64% indicating they prefer search engines for looking up local businesses.

But when you look at the breakdown of sites and apps consumers say they’ve used for local research in the last month, a picture emerges that echoes the Google finding. 

As we can see, the most frequently used tools are Google Search and Google Maps, with Facebook making a strong third place, and the next three positions are occupied by social apps: Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. However, a significant portion also says they’ve used Apple Maps, Yelp, Bing and DuckDuckGo (which uses Apple for local data). 

When we examine the demographic breakdown of the results, we begin to see a full picture of today’s consumer preferences. 

Among consumers aged 18 to 24, the top local tool used by 67% of respondents is Instagram, followed by TikTok at 62%, with Google Search coming in third at 61%. According to our findings, it seems that Gen Z is even more likely to use social apps for local search and discovery than 18 months ago.

On the other hand, Google Search remains the dominant choice in every other age group, with usage of social apps declining dramatically for consumers older than 44. 

The action item

Financial firms need to be discoverable on a range of popular search and social platforms. The strategy that firms should pursue will depend on their target audience, but it’s safe to say that most businesses don’t just want to appeal to one age group, and therefore will need to spread their efforts across both search and social appropriately. The big revelation here is that social is now the clear preference for the youngest consumers when it comes to local search and discovery. 

Takeaway #3: Consumers love recommendations

The findings

We’re all consumers ourselves, so we know that online reviews and social media content are an important part of the consideration phase in many purchases. We asked our consumers how often they read online reviews before making a purchase decision, and most (87%) said they do so regularly. 

As for the star ratings that matter, consumers are choosy, with 77% indicating that a business must have at least three, if not four stars out of five to be considered. 

Consumers also appreciate timely, meaningful feedback from firms when they write reviews. Some 81% of consumers reported they write reviews of local businesses occasionally, while 41% said they’re more likely to choose a business that responds to its online reviews.

However, only 30% said that when they wrote their most recent review, the business responded within one to two days. More troubling, only half of consumers who received a response said they felt fully satisfied by the interaction. 

The action item

It’s clear financial firms need to focus on creating great customer experiences so they’ll receive a steady stream of positive reviews. Whether negative or positive, when they receive reviews, they must provide timely, relevant feedback by responding to each review. Firms need a clear protocol for review response that addresses common concerns, mitigates compliance risks and doubles down on the types of feedback that build loyalty. 

Takeaway #4: Connect with customers where they're already spending time: on social media

The findings

If search is the channel for consumers seeking information and peer recommendations, social is the channel where they hang out, interact with friends and groups sharing their interests — and connect in meaningful ways with financial businesses.

We’ve already noted that, especially for Gen Z and millennials, social is increasingly the first place consumers turn when looking to fill local needs. This holds particularly true for financial advice and knowledge. According to a 2023 survey, 75% of millennials and Gen Zers use apps and social media as their primary financial education resource.

A huge part of social media’s appeal is its ability to showcase relevant content that will appear to the right consumers at the right time. This mode of discovery is one that our consumers say they experience frequently.

Of course, consumers are also used to treating social media as a communication tool, and they expect the same timely and meaningful interactions with businesses as they experience with friends and other users. Unfortunately, as with reviews, consumers say businesses aren’t especially attuned to their needs in social channels today. 

Some 82% of the consumers in our survey say they sometimes post comments and questions in online profiles for businesses, but only 31% say the business responded quickly to their last comment or question, and only 57% got any response at all. 

As with reviews, only about half of the consumers surveyed (48%) said that the response they received from the business satisfied their expectations. A fuller picture is emerging: businesses need to do a better job of nurturing their relationships with customers in every channel they use for search and discovery.

The action item

Similar to responding to online reviews, businesses must engage with their audiences on social media. Any comment or question your firm receives on social platforms should be addressed in both a timely and personalized manner while adhering to industry regulations. Consumers want to feel seen and heard, and engaging with them on social platforms, where they already spend a lot of time, is key. 

Takeaway #5: The power of digital communication the findings

The Covid pandemic only increased the amount of time consumers spend online, and helped to create high expectations for online availability for all kinds of businesses. In recent years the pace at which new features have become available for businesses to showcase themselves has also increased. The result? Consumers expect to be able to research businesses, weigh alternatives, book appointments and find exactly the service they need, all through online platforms. Some 91% of our respondents, in fact, reported that their offline purchase journey begins online, at varying degrees of frequency (see chart).

When we asked consumers what factors matter when deciding whether to visit or contact a local business, they essentially answered, “All of them.” Quality, cost and data accuracy mattered to our consumers the most, followed by proximity, speed of service and brand reputation. But all of our factors got significant attention, including personal recommendations, customer feedback, high search ranking, visual content and many more. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, 63% of those surveyed said that many of these factors become more important when contemplating larger purchases — in particular, quality, cost, brand reputation and customer feedback. 

The action item

We’re all online, all the time. In order to compete these days, financial firms must go way above and beyond merely listing their hours and phone numbers (though make sure these are correct!). Every feature and detail that consumers might need to know or use, and that search and social platforms make available, should be utilized to the fullest extent. 

Google and Facebook are the most feature-rich (and popular) platforms overall, so start with those, but don’t neglect Instagram, TikTok, Apple Maps, Yelp and Bing — each of which attracts significant segments of U.S. consumers and has its own bells and whistles that can help you stand out. 

Takeaway #6: The use of AI in regulatory industries

The findings

We’ve entered the brave new world of AI. Most consumers are aware of tools like ChatGPT, with 61% saying they feel well-informed about AI developments and 31% reporting that they’ve used AI tools.

As for the use of AI in financial services, many have a wait-and-see attitude. We asked consumers, “How would you feel about a business that uses AI to assist in providing fast and accurate information to customer inquiries?” A plurality of 41% chose “I am OK with businesses using AI to inform and communicate as long as it improves my experience as a customer.” This number went to 54%, its highest level, in the 35-44 age group. 

People are lukewarm on AI usage and still don’t fully understand how it’s being used. What consumers are more confident in are their feelings about transparency, with 76% believing that businesses should clearly disclose the use of AI in customer service, advertising, and marketing.

It’s worth noting that while transparency is key, it’s also important to educate your audience on how AI is being used and highlight that human oversight still occurs in almost every situation. 

The action item

AI is here to stay and is having a transformative impact on the lives of businesses, consumers and the world. That said, it’s still early in the adoption cycle, and there are pitfalls along the way. Savvy financial firms will adopt AI strategies that provide helpful, useful information and meaningful feedback to consumers, and will ensure careful planning and oversight along the way.

Conclusion

The CBI takes a deep dive into consumer sentiment around local search and discovery, and we’ve only presented some of the most significant findings here — those that lead to actions financial firms can take now to improve their relationships with customers at the local level. Over the next few months, we’ll share additional insights from our research that you can use to level up your marketing efforts in specific areas. We trust you’ll agree that understanding the consumer's voice is critical to your success.

Methodology

We surveyed 1,002 consumers aged 18 and above in the week of December 18, 2023. Our respondents were equally distributed across the United States.

About SOCi

SOCi is the CoMarketing Cloud platform for multi-location enterprises. We empower financial services companies like Amerant Bank, Motto Mortgage, Estrella Insurance and First Montana Bank to scale marketing efforts across all digital channels.

As one central place to scale marketing, SOCi makes it easy for financial services companies and their locations to strengthen and scale their digital presence across local search and social pages while staying compliant in messaging.

For more information on how SOCi can help fuel your localized marketing success — visit us at www.soci.ai.

U.S. Bank has launched a national campaign, “The Power of Us,” leveraging artificial intelligence to create audience models to test its creative against. The campaign is the first under new CMO Michael Lacorazza.

The campaign is centered around a brand video and three additional spots that tell the stories of what U.S. Bank, its employees and clients can achieve together. The spots have both Spanish and English versions, with the latter voiced by actor Jake Gyllenhaal.

Agency Supernatural AI’s AI platform was used to create avatars of U.S. Bank’s core target groups to develop the campaign strategy and conduct testing. The campaign will span connected TV, broadcast, out-of-home, digital, social and sponsorships.

AI’s potential remains a strong pull for marketers looking to optimize their campaigns, both when making media investments and for developing creative assets. Klarna, for instance, said it reduced its sales and marketing spend by 11% in Q1 by using AI for processes like image generation and editing. Starburst, meanwhile, is using AI to deliver content in campaign spots in a variety of scenes and styles. For its new campaign, U.S. Bank tapped Supernatural AI’s capabilities to optimize its messaging across different potential audiences by using AI to create avatars of its target audience groups.

Campaign materials are intended to resonate with a large range of people, from business owners to new parents, as well as U.S. bank employees and institutional bankers. The hero video depicts people celebrating retirement, graduations and other milestones, as well as employees working late nights in deserted offices, attempting to work on crowded flights and juggling to maintain a work-life balance. A voiceover explains how the bank is there for both the celebrations and the hard work: “It’s tough for sure, but less tough when you have the right people by your side.” 

The voiceover also highlights the bank’s employees and their dedication to clients: “If it’s important to you, it’s important to us.” 

“This year, we made a commitment to tell the stories of our amazing clients in a way that highlights the people who are at our core,” Lacorazza said in a statement. “The resulting campaign brings to life our purpose, Powering Potential, and tells our brand story through the moments that unite us — from our clients to our tellers, advisors, branch managers, commercial bankers and everyone in between.”

The campaign notably leverages a partnership with New York City-based Supernatural AI and its proprietary AI technology platform. Using AI, the agency created avatars of the bank’s core targets representing six audiences — young affluent, midlife affluent, high net worth, small-business owner, corporate and commercial — to develop the baseline campaign strategy of “powering potential.” The agency then used those audiences to test the strategy and the initial creative executions. 

According to the agency, all of the AI audience models understood and appreciated the double meaning of the campaign line, “The power of US.” The agency used those findings to ensure consistency across all elements of the campaign. The speed-to-market for the project was less than four months, according to a release.

Lacorazza was appointed to U.S. Bank’s CMO role last fall, according to LinkedIn. He previously held roles at Frontpoint, Wells Fargo — where he also served as CMO — TD Ameritrade, Digitas and Marriott International.

JPMorgan Chase launched a business in April that will help marketers target customers based on their spending habits.

Chase Media Solutions, billed as the only bank-led platform of its kind, connects Chase’s 80 million customers to retail deals tailored to their spending directly through their bank app.

Rich Muhlstock, president of Chase Media Solutions, said the bank’s understanding of consumer spending has driven it to “reimagine what retail media networks can offer.”

“Like retailers, we have first-party data and a dedicated audience. But what sets us apart is the unrivaled scale and insights from our customers — having long served as a trusted guide for their financial decisions,” he said. “Chase reaches across brands, merchants and shopping verticals, providing a comprehensive view of purchase behavior; this strengthens the degree of personalization, helping brands deliver offers that stoke consumer interests.”

The bank is not sharing Chase customer data with retailers. Rather, it is working alongside brands and merchants to develop targeted offers for customers.

Brands have long wasted digital ad spend on dead ends. With Chase Media Solutions, brands share what their motivations are — acquiring new customers or building basket size, for instance — and then the bank targets customers with specialized deals through its app’s Chase Offers section.

When a customer activates the deal within the app and makes a subsequent purchase, in-store or online, a statement credit then appears for the customer.

Chase will only charge retailers when a customer follows through with a purchase. Therefore, the retailers will be able to trace back their sales directly to their Chase partnership,

“We will be part of larger campaigns, because there are other things that are obviously always going to be important to building brands and awareness and things like that,” Muhlstock told The Wall Street Journal. “But this fits in nicely with something that can truly drive sales.”

Chase Offers already presented customers with less targeted ads. Moving forward, it will be populated by offers developed within the bank’s new marketing arm.

During 30-day pilot launches for airline Air Canada, coffee chain Blue Bottle and fast-food restaurant Whataburger, participating brands saw sale and customer growth, the bank said.

“The Chase team succeeded in creating a thoughtful, targeted offer that exceeded our expectations. Two distinct offer constructs drove incremental revenue and awareness for Air Canada amongst Chase’s cardmember base,” Scott O’Leary, vice president of loyalty and product for Air Canada, said in a prepared statement. “These tests clearly demonstrated the potential of the Chase Media Solutions channel, and we look forward to working together more in the future.”

The launch follows the integration of Figg, a card-linked marketing platform acquired by the bank in 2022. The bank said it is part of its vision to bring dual value to business clients and banking customers.

Fifth Third has partnered with social impact fintech SpringFour to offer financial resources to underserved communities across the country, the lender announced in May.

Fifth Third’s Financial Empowerment Mobile, or the eBus, in its 20th year of operation, was rebuilt and launched May 3, in Cincinnati, home to the company’s headquarters. The eBus has immediate checking account openings for community participants, face-to-face consultation pods for private conversations, and computer workstations for guests to check out the resources the lender offers through SpringFour.

Aleta Young, vice president and corporate social responsibility strategies director at Fifth Third, told Banking Dive the eBus was revamped to reflect the next generation of financial centers that customers visit, with a suite of financial services designed to cater to their needs.

The $214.6 billion-asset lender aims to use the eBus to reach out to the most underserved pockets of communities that lack easy transportation or access to Fifth Third’s financial centers, Young said. 

“It makes our communities thrive. We know if we can touch two to three people on the bus with resources like we're going to give through SpringFour, we can make a life-changing impact,” she said.

Updated eBus offerings

SpringFour's S4Connect allows users to access the redesigned eBus solutions. This digital offering enables access to 14 categories of financial wellness solutions, including food savings, rental resources, child care, employment services and small-business support. Guests can enter their ZIP code and search for assistance by category.

SpringFour’s platform provides instant, localized results from the 24,000 resources in its database for social service organizations and connects them to people within a three-mile radius of the bus’s location.

“Financial health is so big, and it's so important that it really drives all of our decisions in our lives. And this is a way to make people feel comfortable and seek out outside resources that can help them and, I believe,  destigmatize looking for assistance and resources in the community,” SpringFour CEO Rochelle Gorey said. “Now through the eBus, Fifth Third will be helping to uncover and direct people to those reputable resources that are in the SpringFour database.” 

Consumers can either connect with resources while on the bus, or email the resources to themselves to access later. They can come back for a checking account opportunity or avail themselves of a mortgage facility through a credit report pull, Young said.

“Our community can make their own solution and self-serve what's best for them,” Young said. 

The bus is open for anyone to walk in and browse services using six computer workstations, four pod stations, and eight tablets available on the deck, Young said.

Last year, the bus made 120 event stops, serving nearly 10,000 people. 

Gorey met Young while working with Kelli Clements, director of customer solutions at Fifth Third, on a pilot program aimed at assisting customers with financial stability after the COVID-19 pandemic.

After interacting, both realized their views on serving communities aligned, and talks began last summer about a potential partnership. After getting the necessary approvals, the fintech started working on the eBus project in January, Gorey said. 

“Typically, bank-fintech partnerships can take a long time, but I always say if there's a will, there's a way, and we are really excited about their enthusiasm for launch [of the] product, and it really didn't take long,” she noted.

The eBus is part of Fifth Third’s “Lives Improved Through Financial Empowerment” program, which aims to empower lives through financial stability. Having the bus on the ground will help spread the word and encourage more people to take advantage of available resources, Young said.

Though SpringFour does not store any customer data, Fifth Third will have the data 30 days after customers have accessed the S4Connect portal and get an overview of what resources they opted for and what happened next.

“I feel we're connecting the dots now of what's happening to our community once [the consumers] leave the bus, Young said. “Because when they leave, if they don't open an account, we don't know what really happens.”

Fifth Third also has a customer survey tool on the platform that guests complete when done using the SpringFour portal. The survey, which asks four typical day-to-day banking questions, is for the lender’s financial study. At the end of the survey, guests can either set up an appointment with a banker to hear more or leave their name and information for the banker to reach out to them later, Young said.

Proactive solutions

In Gorey’s view, if a bank points someone to nonprofit resources that can offer help, that person will work with that lender down the road. 

Since SpringFour was founded in 2005, its yearly survey has shown how banks’ cultures change as they work with the fintech, Gorey said.

Financial hardship is an ongoing reality, so the focus should be on getting ahead by creating proactive solutions, she said. While the fintech has innovated on the product front, more attention must be given to helping people experiencing financial problems.

“Why don't we all talk about the fact that most banks — every single bank — have a pool of delinquent borrowers? It's OK; that doesn't mean your bank has done something wrong,” Gorey said. “So let's figure out a way to address delinquency, put strategies, solutions and products in place that can help people when they do get behind on their bills.”

Nearly a year after the launch of Roger, Citizens Bank of Edmond’s neobank for military recruits, the bank will launch a large-scale marketing effort led by Director Marcus Castilla, a former pharmaceutical executive and retired Army lieutenant colonel who is also the husband of CEO Jill Castilla. 

“We have a very aggressive sales and marketing plan,” Marcus Castilla told Banking Dive. “When we're looking at the target audience, it's those communities that support our newly enlisting soldiers,” including officers and noncommissioned officers. 

Roger, named after a military term that suggests a message has been received, rolled out in August 2023 amid a push to reach newly enlisted service members seeking access to bank accounts to fulfill direct deposit information requirements. 

The ecosystem of financial institutions serving military members consists of a few incumbents, such as Navy Federal Credit Union and USAA. Marcus Castilla, a 25-year military veteran who joined the bank in May, said Roger aims to take any friction out of sign-up by setting up incoming service members with a digital bank account in minutes. The marketing campaign will include social media outreach, advocacy from senior leadership and fostering relationships with military leaders.

The military “can't endorse any banks specifically, or financial institutions, so that is always a challenge,” he said. “Just providing that awareness, though, then starts that ball rolling to then provide understanding, establish connections.”

A key selling point is quick turnaround for account setup and the bank’s ability to accept multiple forms of identification, including tribal cards, military identification and green cards.

Marcus Castilla wouldn’t comment on customer numbers, but said the volume of accounts opened has consistently grown by at least 50% every month and the number of accounts opened weekly has doubled. The digital banking platform offers checking accounts with 2% annual percentage yield and savings accounts with 5% APY. It’s also partnering with other military-oriented community banks and credit unions to broaden its reach and provide recruits, a bank spokesperson said.

Digital community bank

A differentiator for Roger is its human approach to customer service, Marcus Castilla said. While the interface is digital-only, Roger provides service from human customer service agents. Roger is also open to customer feedback on product offerings as it looks to expand and modify its suite of products. For example, the bank decided to offer a 2% APY checking account three months after receiving comments from customers, Marcus Castilla said.

The objective of Roger is not to go head to head with incumbent institutions but to provide another option for banking services for new recruits, Marcus Castilla said. The company plans to grow the ensemble of products by partnering with other institutions.

“With Roger, we can make changes very quickly to the needs of the modern soldier, with modern banking for those service members, where it might be difficult for other institutions to do that,” he said. “Jill is in active conversations with other financial institutions who want to join in with Roger to help grow it.”

Ron Shevlin, chief research officer at Cornerstone Advisors, said niches present big opportunities for neobanks, provided the offerings can meet the needs of a particular market segment.

“What makes or breaks a niche strategy is identifying truly unique needs,” he said. “The military is a niche and there are clearly a lot of unique needs of people who are full-time military members … [Jill Castilla] recognized that new service members had certain challenges in getting banked by … the existing military-focused financial institutions.”

The challenge for Roger will be on the execution side, he said.

Patrick McKenna, co-founder of Facet Wealth, said the power of a platform like Roger is its ability to help new military recruits start building a framework for managing their financial lives — a foundation that will help them through different life stages, including the eventual transition to civilian life. McKenna spent 11 years in the military.

If Roger can successfully crack customer acquisition among military members, it has a significant runway to grow through word-of-mouth recommendations.

“The military is the ultimate affinity group — military people listen to other military people,” McKenna said. Finding advocates “that have a voice that young military members are listening to seems like an opportunity, but also the challenge,” he added.

A former Bank of America employee has developed an app tailored to women after recognizing gender disparities in investing regardless of education or financial literacy levels.

Feli Oikonomopoulou, founder and CEO of WealthMeUp, was a legal counsel and vice president at Bank of America in London for four years before moving to the U.S. to study at the Yale School of Management in 2023.

While working in the financial industry for more than eight years in the U.K., Luxembourg, France, Greece, Singapore and the U.S., Oikonomopoulou encountered gender inequality as an international issue when she noticed her female colleagues were less likely to invest than men. In diving into the issue, she said she realized financial services firms don’t do much to cater to women when they structure their products.

WealthMeUp, a free tool aimed at revolutionizing how women approach investing, is designed with a woman’s lifestyle and spending habits in mind, Oikonomopoulou told Banking Dive. The beta version of the app, launched in June, is for everyone to use but is built specifically for women, she said.

“The company is about financial literacy and investing, and our vision is to revolutionize the way that women engage with their investments and simply turn purchases into investment opportunities,” she said.

Women drive 80% of consumer spending but have often been underrepresented in the investment space, she said. A recent study from the World Economic Forum highlights that if women invested more, it could initiate an additional $3 trillion in global investment capital.

Oikonomopoulou, originally from Greece, said she left the country because of the financial crisis. Her experience in Greece made her realize that when an imbalance happens, those without knowledge of financial management are disproportionately affected.

WealthMeUp, developed while Oikonomopoulou was completing her MBA at Yale, has a core team of three members, including the founder, a team of advisers, interns and external contractors. The interns are mainly from northern New York and attend Cornell, Columbia and New York University.

The app focuses on financial education for Gen Z and millennial women and has users from these schools or nearby areas. This has paved the way for Oikonomopoulou to discuss introducing the product to the schools.

Investing in literacy

The app aims to present users with steps to make it easier for them to gain knowledge and invest.

The first is the financial education tool — the one currently being launched — to clear up misconceptions around investing, Oikonomopoulou said. There are 140 short courses that take roughly five minutes to complete, covering seven financial topics designed to help women learn the basics of stocks, bonds, mutual funds and other investment options. After the user engages with a tool, she is rewarded with points, which can be redeemed through products or services offered at no cost through the app’s partnering firms.

“Therefore, you associate financial learning to begin with a positive habit and with something that rewards you with something that you need,” she said.

The next step: guide the user through investment options available on the platform with the help of financial coaches and financial advisers who work with the firm. That feature is in the pilot stage.

Oikonomopoulou also plans to implement a revenue-sharing model in which the firm partners with a bank or a credit card company that offers cash back on a user’s spending and redirects that to her investment account. 

“Turning your spending habits into investment opportunities in a very safe way, given the cash back that you receive on your spending, is essentially free money that you were not expecting to come,” she said.

While building the app, Oikonomopoulou sought feedback from men and women to assess their preferences regarding investing. While women expressed a preference for goal-oriented self-development, men preferred monetary value, which could be even less than $1, she noted.

Structure and rewards

Financial services apps like Acorns have a similar model of investing spare change, but WealthMeUp's mission is female-focused. The company partners with female-led companies for cash-back rewards, using those rewards to invest rather than accumulate spare change, Oikonomopoulou said.

Oikonomopoulou views Ellevest, a robo-adviser investment platform and financial literacy program, as the biggest competitor in the female investor and female-focused financial services space, but she doesn't see it as a direct rival. She instead considers Ellevest a partner in working toward the shared vision of promoting female investing and putting more money into the hands of women.

WealthMeUp also works with the fitness franchise Orangetheory and financial coaching service FemFinancial. When app users accumulate 3,000 points, they can redeem those for two one-hour sessions at Orangetheory and some merchandise, Oikonomopoulou said.

Oikonomopoulou said she thinks the next phase of the fintech revolution is here, and women can play a fundamental role in it because this stage involves “financial products to be more personalized and more integrated into our very personal needs and habits.” 

Consumers looking for deals often use coupon finders in their browsers to find promotional offers to apply at checkout. Now, Citi wants to be the preferred intermediary through which its cardholders find online discounts and other rewards through a tool it rolled out in January called Citi Shop.

The Citi Shop browser extension, which can only be used by Citi credit card holders, searches for coupons on eligible merchant checkout pages and suggests applicable codes to apply at checkout. The program can potentially reduce the amount a customer pays and can also activate cash-back offers that are delivered as credits on credit card statements. It includes roughly 5,000 merchants across 30 product categories. 

“We’re not only making it easier for card members to find savings while shopping online but we’re also addressing that finding time is one of the top barriers for consumers looking for a deal,” Anthony Merola, head of proprietary products at Citi branded cards, told Banking Dive.

Citi partnered with fintech Wildfire Systems, a white-label loyalty platform that works with “dozens” of banks and fintech firms, including Royal Bank of Canada, LendingClub and Acorns, to develop Citi Shop, said Shawn Conahan, the company’s chief revenue officer. Citi Ventures, one of Citi’s three venture investing vehicles, invested an undisclosed amount in Wildfire in 2022.

The goal of Citi Shop, according to the bank, is to enhance card members' relationships and trust with the institution and help them save money. These types of programs also boost revenue when bank fees are under pressure, including efforts to limit late fees and credit card interchange, Conahan said.

Citi did not comment on its monetization model, including whether it earns a percentage of each successful Citi Shop transaction that has a cash-back benefit. However, while not referring to Citi specifically, Conahan said banks and fintechs it works with typically take a cut of merchant-funded cash-back-offer pie, which can be 10% of the price of an item, or higher. 

Offers vary by merchant and are not a fixed amount, he clarified, and the company’s merchant development team works with merchants and negotiates offer rates. A portion of the merchant offer is shared with the consumer.

“We take a little off the top and we get to make a business out of that. We give the rest — the lion's share of it —  [to the partner], and then they share that with the consumer, so everyone wins,” he said. 

An ecosystem of browser extensions

Getting into the retail checkout through browser extensions is a natural fit for banks and financial firms that want to learn more about how consumers shop, said Suzy Davidkhanian, a retail analyst at Insider Intelligence. 

In recent years, banks and fintechs have rolled out browser extensions that offer coupon codes and cash-back offers for e-commerce shoppers. 

These include PayPal, which operates PayPal Honey, a digital coupon and price-tracking platform that the payments company acquired for $4 billion in 2020, and Capital One Shopping, a coupon and cash-back platform that stemmed from the bank’s 2018 acquisition of the fintech Wikibuy for an undisclosed amount. (Wikibuy was later rebranded as Capital One Shopping, which finds coupons and cash-back offers for consumers, including those who aren’t Capital One customers.)

“There's all this data that's sitting in credit card behaviors, and monetizing that ... from a financial institution’s perspective, is important for everybody,” Davidkhanian said. “The brands want to know what their customers and potential customers are doing so that they can target them.”

Trends the bank sees from shopping habits, surveys or direct customer feedback “help us elevate the card member experience and bring more impactful solutions,” Merola said.

Wildfire said its toolset does not allow its partners to monetize the data, and Citi confirmed that it’s not monetizing consumer shopping data insights from Citi Shop.

“We decided that we were not going to be a data company,” Conahan said. “We are a fintech [and] we monetize the transaction. We do not sell data.” 

The data play

Some companies in the digital couponing field might be interested in using consumer shopping data — likely aggregated insights — to help partner retailers pitch offers to consumers.

“Institutions have so much data about people's behaviors. I don't think they're going to ever share [individual transaction data], but I think they’re going to be able to say things like ‘People who live in New York go out on Tuesday or Wednesday, and so, if you need them to come to your local restaurant, maybe this is when you target them with an ad or with a coupon or a gift certificate,’” Davidkhanian said.

John Kim, executive vice president and chief product officer at PayPal, suggested financial companies may use aggregated, anonymized insights garnered from shopping tools to help merchants suggest offers to consumers who may be interested in a particular product or service. Network rules and regulation, he said, prevent banks and financial companies from sharing individual-level transaction data with partners.

For Wildfire’s clients, a key motivation is to keep the customer loyal over time, Conahan said.

“It’s 10 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one, and nothing says I love you like free money,” he said. “What they have realized is that consumers expect these kinds of rewards in exchange for their loyalty.”

In May, Serena Williams stoked rumors that she was contemplating a return to the court with a single vague tweet. But until the retired tennis legend makes it official, the best place to see her — other than Paris Fashion Week or a random Ulta store — will be "In The Arena: Serena Williams," an eight-episode docuseries that debuted in July on ESPN+.

Morgan Stanley serves as the presenting sponsor for "In The Arena" and is featured across in-show branding elements on streaming and linear properties, voice-over promotions within ESPN studio shows and brand mentions across ESPN cross-channel promotions. The sponsorship, a collaboration with Disney Advertising, allows the financial services company to continue an investment into women's sports that is part of its larger marketing priorities.

“We've spent a good amount of time since late 2022 to early 2023 really focused on and looking at how to lift up women's sports,” said Morgan Stanley CMO Alice Milligan. “How do we as a firm change that and move the needle on something we believe in that represents our core values?”

The firm’s investment comes amid an ad industry-wide reevaluation of women's elites sports. The market, which traditionally receives 1% to 2% of total sports investment, is forecast to surpass $1 billion in revenue this year, per Deloitte.

Morgan Stanley’s moves into women's sports and other cultural avenues reflect a broader push to modernize its nearly 90-year-old brand for a new generation of investors. Leading those efforts is Milligan, who joined Morgan Stanley as chief marketing officer in 2021 after a two-year stint as chief customer officer at subsidiary brand E*Trade. 

Milligan spoke about the "In The Arena" sponsorship, how Morgan Stanley approaches purpose-driven efforts and what's on her radar in the second half of 2024.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

INDUSTRY DIVE: How does the partnership with Disney and ESPN reflect your marketing priorities?

ALICE MILLIGAN: We launched a marketing campaign for the firm last year called "Old School Grit. New World Ideas," and Serena is a living example of grit and vision. She leverages her passion for what's possible and has broken down barriers in her career across the sport. It seemed like a natural fit with what we were doing in terms of our brand marketing, as well as our core values of giving back, lifting up and helping women and young girls.

Tennis is something we've really doubled down on, between our partnership with the Women's Tennis Association, our "Come Play" initiatives for young girls as part of that partnership and then having Leylah Fernandez as our brand ambassador. 

How do purpose-driven initiatives fit into Morgan Stanley's larger marketing efforts?

MILLIGAN: As a firm and as a marketer, we don't just do things for press or to make the news: We do things that are consistent with our core values and what we're doing in terms of our marketing message. 

When I first took over the role of CMO, one of the first things we did is get a sense of where Morgan Stanley stood in terms of our clients and prospects, and what did we want to accomplish as a firm on our growth agenda and our business strategy. What we saw was, with the purchase of firms like E*Trade and Eaton Vance, Morgan Stanley not only purchased incremental, innovative technologies and capabilities, but also the opportunity to appeal to a much broader base and audience than they had before.

Expanding into younger generations, diverse audiences and women was really important as we thought about our marketing strategy: how do we start to bring to life the benefits of doing business with a firm like Morgan Stanley, because there's benefits for all, not just for a select few.

It's really important to understand the message you're trying to send and who's the audience. How do you select things that really are reflective of what you believe in as a firm versus doing things just because it's something that is popular or timely.

Outside of women's sports, what other related efforts has the firm undertaken?

MILLIGAN: We did an initiative called "Creating Space" which was all about making it more conducive for women to be in space economy by doing a partnership around women's space suits. We also partnered with [designer] Rebecca Minkoff and did a refreshed version of the banker bag for a new generation of women on Wall Street. We also recently partnered with the Met, where we sponsored their Women Dressing Women event that featured women designers over time, their history and what their contributions were to fashion.

We revamped all of our social media and our social presence. We looked at doing innovative things with technology. At The Players tournament this year, we did an AR activation with [golfer] Justin Rose, we did 3-D billboards, we're doing AI with our financial advisers. There's been a whole bunch of things that we're doing to show the firm is modern and current, but also has that legacy and history of being able to stand the test of time during complex market environments. 

As we look ahead to H2, what issues in the marketing industry are on your radar?

MILLIGAN: I would say privacy is always top of mind, especially being in the financial services industry. We take very seriously people's data and information, how that's used, how that's protected, and how we keep that secure. 

Data and analytics are always an important elements as a marketer: the more data and information you can get on the results and the impact of what you do, especially in tough economic times, is really important. My team spends a lot of time just really ensuring that we're able to share, explain and communicate the outcomes from the marketing initiatives that we do. 

With generative AI, we've really been looking at how best to leverage it. I think some of the initial things that we're doing as a team across my marketing organization are looking at the use cases we can test. A good number of them, at least initially, are really internally facing: How can we be more efficient and effective at how we use our marketing dollars, how we develop and distribute our content, but also looking at where people have been bolder, what does that look like and what are the results?