Today I logged into Facebook, had a quick look to see if anyone said anything original, shared anything entertaining or enlightening, or if anyone had posted on my wall or anyone had requested friendship - You know, the usual...I spent about 5 minutes there :P
One thing jumped out at me, a 'sponsor' ad for my financial institute. They have turned 100 years old (or are going to shortly) and are offering $100 to those that sign up two different account types with them by the end of the month AND use their card 5 times by December 14. It turns out you have to apply in-branch and it applies for the first 10,000 customers only - Meaning if they all take up the offer, the bank is giving away 1 million dollars...Brilliant.
This really irritates me. I mean it's my bank paying money to run an ad, trying to capture more clients and doing this by giving away funds. I've been a member of the bank since I was like 3, that's just over 20 years. I'd rather they look after loyal clients like me than run with these gimmicks.
I understand some believe that you have to spend money to make money and that this will be a good investment in the long run but I have different thoughts on the matter. If customer satisfaction were to be increased and clients of the bank seemed to be well of financially, these people would be more inclined to recommend the bank to their friends, family, peers, work colleagues, etc and anyone else that might ask.
I got thinking about other advertising that I can remember off the top of my head.
Red Cross Blood Donations - I saw this on Windows Live Messenger. The first thing I did was open a chat window with a friend that is Anti-Microsoft and asked him if he figured the Red Cross paid for the ads or if Microsoft gave it to them for free, or gave it to them and claimed it on tax somehow. He figured the latter, I still wonder...
Everything else I notice tends to be for Alcohol and Insurance...oh and Fast Food too I suppose.And I tend not to notice ads on websites...
it hard to find anything today that isnt littered with advertisements.
ReplyDeletenice read :)
You're right that it's kind of disgusting for banks to give out all of these crazy offers to new customers while ignoring the older, more loyal ones but what can you do about it? As scorcher says, nice read as usual.
ReplyDeleteI do prefer it when a company does things for existing customers, not just banks, but it is pretty cool that a bank is willing to give away a million dollars like that.
ReplyDeleteThey know that less than half of the people that sign up for the promo will actually complete the requirements so they will only give way 500k or less and get lots of new customers.
ReplyDelete