Response Magazine - September 2008

tion is all conducted online. The only brick-and-mortar repre- promote the business. This particular campaign was one of many sentations of an ING Direct “branch” are hip, high-tech Peet’s clever community-driven events that educated and excited con-Coffee & Tea cafes where customers do their checking and bal- sumers about ING Direct. ancing in private computer pods while sipping soy lattes. “One of the initial challenges we faced was how to have a

The vividly orange site, ingdirect.com, garners more than 2 local presence in the market when we are a direct bank, and cre-million unique monthly visitors, but the user demographic is sur- ate a reputation that people would trust,” says Feinberg. “One of prisingly mature. The home page was designed to engage more the first things we did was create an outdoor presence. We tried than just tech-savvy millennials. It’s an easy-to-navigate, action- to have a very local flavor by adding humor that would relate to based dashboard, in plain language, with prompts as simple as, that specific marketplace.” “Sign up for an account.” Philadelphia, for example, is notorious for its hardcore sports

“Our Web site is what I would call shockingly simple,” says fans. One of the billboards in that market read, “Higher interest. Pieterse. “If you go to our home page, I don’t think any other No bank fees. Sorry sports fans, nothing to boo.” In Houston: major bank or credit union has the simplicity of our home page.” “Saving money isn’t rocket science.” And in Los Angeles: “Aug-

It also houses a trove of financial tips, tools and resources ment your savings.” on how to save, how to invest and how to manage credit. “If you’re going to try to have a little bit more humor, there’s Orangekids.com, a product of ING Direct, is a free financial a risk that you could potentially offend someone, but one of the education site for kids, parents and goals of our creative is to be memorable,” says Feinberg. “ Peo-teachers to learn about money man- ple will smile, and that will help them to remember the ad and agement in a fun and interactive hopefully think more highly of our brand as a result.” way with games and quizzes. One of the company’s most memorable and successful brand- “The key thing that everyone is ing campaigns was tied in with a strong direct response initiative focused on is how do we continue on the back end. to build the brand, and extend “About two years ago we did a ‘station domination’ of Grand the brand, and make it relevant so Central Station [in New York],” explains Feinberg. “We wanted that people believe in the safe, sav- to leverage that additionally with some response mechanisms. ing-your-money message that we So we partnered with the MTA and distributed The New York deliver,” says Pieterse. Times to all of the The company’s motto is short commuters that morn-and sweet: Save your money. Sav- ing. We wrapped ing is for everyone, even kids, and them in a cover and ING Direct is making this easy to there was a [free-do and easy to achieve. The message is conveyed standing insert] inside, through its casual cafes, the plain language on its which had all of the site, and most notably, the humor in its branded response information.” DR-advertising. This may all be highly uncharac- Response rates teristic in a predominantly conservative industry, were tracked through but Pieterse is helping to carve out a niche that’s reference codes and ^leaving ^a ^major ^impression. Humor plays a big role in the brand advertising of ING Direct. ⁸⁰⁰ ^numbers ^and ^pro-

“When you look at the whole banking mar- From outdoor signage to Web banners to orange cash cows vided a great indica-
ketplace, the biggest player is Bank of America, passing out free hot dogs, the company carries the humorous tion for how well the
and they have approximately a 10-percent ^tone ^and ^voice ^across ^all ^mediums ⁱⁿ ^varied ^markets.campaign worked.
market share,” says Pieterse. “So if you think of “The nearest thing
it that way, if you could appeal to 10 to 20 percent of the mar- that sort of mirrors [the station domination] is when we do a
ketplace and offend the other 80 percent, you’d be bigger than market launch,” says Darren Mahoney, director of online mar-
Bank of America.” keting. “We’ll tend to do things that are a little more overt on a
Web site, more rich media, more on the page that would just get
increase awareness and grab the user versus a typical banner ad.”
When the orange cash cows were passing out free hot dogs
and parking passes in Chicago, Mahoney led the online efforts,
which integrated the branding with an online campaign to com-
plement the event. During ING Direct’s launch into Chicago,
the people in cow suits gave away free parking and jumbo hot
CONTINUED >

Funny Business

“Humor has played a very important role as a differentiator,” says Jackie Feinberg, advertising manager. “Our brand prides itself on speaking directly to the consumer and having a voice that you can relate to.”