We've always done it this way
If the headline made you cringe and drew you to read further, you're in luck, as today I will ensure this cringe-fest continues.
I am old enough to remember when Paid Search and Paid Social became part of the marketing mix for most, and we're all now very good at utilizing these "new" channels. We've also become great at dipping our toes into "new" channels like Podcasts, Influencers, Push Notifications, etc.?Cringe Moment: We are not very good at acknowledging?significant step changes.?We adopted Paid Search and Social somewhat reluctantly as the existing mix at the time was "working". We're showing a similar slowness to accept that the consumer is not going to rely on the old ways of looking for their next banking product going forward. 100+ million consumers are testing GPT and its various plugins and agents. Given the rate and pace of adoption, cringe moment, you know the?reliance on the "Google search for ThePointsGuy article that tells me which Delta card is the best" is fading very quickly.
Here's what AgentGPT is recommending as the "Best Credit Card" for everyday use:
AgentGPT, without looking at my spending habits, suggests Chase Freedom Unlimited, Citi Double Cash, and Capital One Venture Rewards as the "best credit cards for everyday use" and provides excellent reasons why those 3 have been "hand" picked for me. This stuff is in beta, and we definitely need to ignore some of the noise surrounding it, but the signal is undeniable. These tools are willing to take my spend across all my cards and crunch the numbers and tell me which card is best for me. I can use this to help me find the?optimum?combination of checking, savings, and credit, based on my past 12 months of data.?Will your product be featured by AgentGPT??It's a thought experiment worth playing out. In this new?GPT-world, I don't believe the path that the companies in control are seeking is a pay-to-play scheme, which means that our "affiliate-like" marketing techniques won't cut it.?It all boils down to the core value prop offered.
I see two clear paths forward (it's really just one):
1. The value prop has to sell itself
2.?Your product(s) cater to a niche, and you are the best value prop for that niche
I wrote a post last week, "What have you done for me lately?" highlighting?how the Apple Card continues to enhance its value prop. "Shipping" enhancements?was?a silicon valley thing, it now needs to be an?every-industry thing.
Cringe moment (for me), please?subscribe?to my newsletter on?LinkedIn?so you can see these off-weekly posts.
We (as an industry) are all so focused on getting the consumer to use our Travel Portals and registering our card in their digital wallets, however, the consumer is more likely to be using the Plugins from Expedia and Klarna on?ChatGPT?very soon and we need to get on them fast. A framework I utilize to identify signal from noise is,?what the smartest people do on the weekend is what everyone else will do during the week.
Someone much smarter than me, Marc Andreessen, has a fantastic?myth-busting substack?on why AI won't cause unemployment. The bigger takeaway for me personally is that in this already-seen-hundreds-of-times graph below I had missed that Financial Services is not on the chart (since we aren't really a good), but when you think about the divide between the cost of "regulated" vs. "non-regulated" goods, we happen to be comfortably in the red portion and essentially should be in a position to continue to benefit from the 10x leverage that AI will offer, without it jeopardizing our margins, as long as we morph our products to be featured in this new dynamic.
领英推荐
Andrew Davidson has done two episodes on AI along with our experts for Mintel's Little Conversation podcast. You can listen to the?podcast?or view it on?YouTube Ep1,?Ep2.
Switching gears back to the current marketing spend, Q1'23 once again saw Capital One in the lead with Chase as a close second and Citi rounding out the Top 3. Slow & steady, Chase seems to be ramping up its marketing over the past 8-10 quarters while Amex continues to ease a bit on the gas pedal. Omni clients can view the full details?here.
A very sold-out presentation by Diana Kelter & Nicole Bond, M.S. is available to you for late Spring/Summer:?Gen Z Myths and Realities
Please let me know if interested, but I'll request you to be patient with me as there is high demand for this one.
Emily Pardo has another landscape report out, this time on:
In 2023, secured and non-rewards cards represent a stepping stone for consumers to easily build credit with low fees.
Finally, in addition to what Apple Card is doing with enhancements, a simple outside-our-category example that hit my inbox yesterday is Sweetgreen, announcing the launch of Sweetpass+, a $10 per month rewards program.
The value-prop got much sweeter and if you are a regular, it's a no-brainer as you just need 3 purchases in the month and you will start racking up savings. While Sweetgreen is likely going to convert, tens of thousands of their regulars to become even more devoted and perhaps pick a lot more "net new" customers, we shouldn't be sitting outside looking in and not acknowledging that we need to?change before we have to. I personally think the "old" model was,?to?charge an annual fee to provide access.?Today, the model that resonates is a "smaller" monthly or perhaps daily fee in exchange for an "instant" win for the consumer. Our attention spans are shrinking very fast and this goes full circle to my mention of the Apple Card earlier,?what have you done for me lately?
As ever - Anuj