Bankers go to Market

Bankers could read the future in the trends: The deposit base per household was declining, competition was savage, and overhead costs for operating bricks-and-mortar branches were increasingly onerous. They could go on as they had been and keep closing branches, or they could find a new way to deliver their services.

“We asked ourselves how we could gain more market share and audience in the communities we were banking in,” says Gary Greg, senior vp-retail network management for Pittsburgh-based PNC Bank.

What Greg wanted was a way to “micro-grow” PNC in areas that didn’t require full-service banks but which still needed what he calls “an additional touch-point.” Branch banks in supermarkets seemed to be the answer, especially on the West Coast, where there was an even greater need “to take the bank to the consumer,” rather than the other way around, he says.

The idea didn’t originate at PNC. It was Memphis-based NCB that first made supermarket banking the focal point of its expansion program in the mid-1980s under the leadership of ceo Thomas Garrot. And although the concept was more popular in places such as California and Arizona, it wouldn’t stay confined there.

Two years ago, at about the same time PNC was approaching a California agency to create branch-bank promotions, Princeton, New Jersey-based Summit Bancorp, Inc. was also eyeing supermarkets. Research had found that nearly 50 percent of its customers were no longer banking at traditional branches but were relying heavily on telephones, ATMs, and computers.

Seeing the research, it occurred to promotions veteran Randle Grossman, president of Bridgewater, NJ-based GWP, that in-store branches represented banking’s last, best chance for personal contact with customers. In his pitch to Summit, Grossman termed in-store branches an alternative retail marketing channel – a way for banks to “be out there in a proactive way with consumers.” A planned visit to a bricks-and-mortar bank is something met by most consumers with a yawn – not an experience, but rather a dull chore, he says.

Grossman told Summit that in-store branches would provide customer convenience at a far lower cost-per-location than traditional banks. It took very little time for Summit to sign up.

Milk, bread, and a line of credit

Roger Lockwood, creative director of Redondo Beach, CA-based PremiereGroup, the promo agency hired by PNC, had already done similar work for Bank of America and was aware of what the problems were. He knew that bankers were generally conservative, with a stolid reputation that put many consumers on the verge of coma. “Most banks struggle to translate their purpose, their message, their image into retail language,” says Greg. “They don’t provide an attractive message to the consumer – not because the message is wrong, but because the delivery and flavor of the message don’t match the environment and atmosphere of retail.”

The answer, thought Lockwood, was humor – in-store merchandising that would barrage the customer with themed messages humorously linking banking to grocery shopping. In a 1997 campaign for Bank of America and Lucky Supermarkets, PremiereGroup placed giant grocery bag standees packed with fake greenbacks just outside the store. Inside, consumers ran into standees declaring, “Today, get a $25 check just for checking out!” Lucky staffers handed out brochures that looked like checkbooks. Inside was a $25 check for free groceries that could only be cashed if a Bank of America account was opened.

PremiereGroup employ-ed the same tactics in a PNC campaign for Giant Food, Inc.’s Super G chain.

Positioned in the store were posters with messages such as “Paper or Plastic” and “Now You Can Save Your Bread Where You Buy It.” Grocery carts carried PNC cards with more food-money analogies: “Can We Loan You Some Beans?” and “Don’t Forget to Pick Up Bread.” “We wanted as un-banklike an approach as possible,” Lockwood says.

The PNC campaign emphasized customer empowerment, says Lockwood. Banks were often “stuffy and intimidating, almost as if the money belonged to the bank and not the customer.” Taglines on displays and products stated, “The buck starts here,” and “More bank for your bucks.”

PNC offered shoppers low-cost premiums ranging from chocolate coins and fortune cookies to free fruit and bread. The fortune cookies dispensed sage slogans (“Return your finances to their full and upright position”) and some were redeemable for prizes. Bank stickers were slapped on fresh fruit, and realistically painted chocolate dollars were given out after new accounts were opened.

“We take the position that we want the store and its customers to view us as another department, not any different than bakery or produce,” says Greg. The success of the PremiereGroup campaigns were due to their “unique, wry wit,” he suggests. “We’re not in the store for the purpose of selling a product, but for building a relationship. If you have the relationship, you will sell the product.”

Two on the aisle

GWP employed a different approach for Summit, turning bank employees into active partners in the promotion. Setting up a branch bank in a supermarket meant that bank employees needed to act as ambassadors, “working hand in hand with store staffers to enhance the shopping experience,” says Grossman.

Shoppers never quite knew when a Summit employee would pop up in the meat department or dairy section to dispense brochures on equity loans, checking accounts, or certificates of deposit. With 30,000 monthly shoppers, grocery aisles provided a captive audience for Summit’s marketing efforts, and many employees became truly skilled at working the floor, says Grossman.

Summit staffers used juice and soup cans as props for their sales pitches. They donned supermarket aprons and handed out flowers or vegetable seeds to illustrate the “home-grown” quality of home loans or other Summit services.

GWP supported in-store efforts with a Jungle Safari instant-win game tied to the Walt Disney Animal Kingdom theme park. The game gave Summit sales and account reps an opportunity to interact with consumers in a “fun and compelling way,” says Grossman.

Summit currently has the largest number of branch banks in the Northeast, thanks to a 1997 deal it signed with Pathmark Stores, Inc. that opened 70 branches last year. Summit has branches in two A&Ps and two Shop-Rite supermarkets as well.

“Banks are taking the lead from packaged goods companies in learning how to break the clutter barrier in supermarkets,” says Grossman. “They’re learning how to extend the brand into the marketplace, and that’s good for the market and the bank.” Among other benefits, in-store banks are traffic-builders for supermarkets, increasing visits by fringe shoppers.

Not everything is canned peaches and cream. Bankers still have two kinds of mindsets, according to Grossman. “You have the aggressive marketers, and then you have the higher-up managers who look at promotion dollars as an expense rather than an investment,” he says.

Retailers and their banking boarders also need to develop “more consistent partnering,” he says. Some retailers are looking at banks as a revenue source – charging rent for the floor space – when they should be thinking of how the bank can help grow the customer base and create more repeat customers. But Summit couldn’t be more pleased so far. A branch manager in Kenilwor th, NJ, said the campaign “has definitely raised sales, and delivered a retail theme that is very important to us.”

“With Summit, we proved that promotion is no longer the exclusive territory of consumer packaged goods,” says Grossman.

You can take that to the bank.