(1) The Financial Services Industry is missing the boat when it comes to communication

For the last 30 years, the financial services industry has ridden the Baby Boomer wave.

It has been a (largely) glorious time for everyone involved as this golden generation, one way or another, has poured money into the banking industry.

But the gravy train is now juddering to a halt as Boomers shift into retirement - divesting instead of investing…

This is putting enormous pressure on financial institutions to attract younger clients.

And almost every single one of them is struggling to get any traction.

The simple reason for this is that almost everything that seemed to work for Baby Boomers is actively rejected by Generation X and particularly Millennials.

You see, Boomers grew up in an era when institutions and brands were trusted.

People listened to them.

And believed them.

But over the last ten years in particular, our relationship with institutions and brands has changed extraordinarily.

From the 2008 Crash, to the Volkswagen ‘diesel emission scandal’ to Cambridge Analytica, to the Rise of Fake news…

…levels of trust and belief in brands have dropped through the floor.

Not surprisingly, running alongside this decline - has been the meteoric rise of peer-to-peer reviews and customer ratings.

Across every sector, peer-to-peer opinion and reviews are becoming more valued and influential, than the thoughts of ‘experts’ or institutions.

Everything from Amazon reviews to Trip Advisor to Open Table, to The Infatuation, to Yelp demonstrate the rising tide of this widespread shift in trust.

In other words, the era of the authoritarian brand or institution that knows what is best for us - is dead.

This has dramatic implications for the way all brands communicate with their audiences. But it is particularly important for those in the financial industry to take note. This is because this is a sector that is built on trust - but since 2008 has been reeling from the loss of it.

Given this context, one would have thought that the financial services industry would be at the very vanguard of new ways of communicating with audiences. And yet…it is shockingly slow to adapt.

The whole industry is still anchored to the model of an analyst preparing a huge written document and then distributing it to the world as though it were fact. It cannot let go of the ‘Brand Knows Best’ model.

This is going to come back and bite them hard. I will talk about why the industry is so reluctant to make this change and what they can do in a future article…