Global marketing and globalization are traditionally thought of as trends relevant to consumer goods and not financial services. Or at least not financial services distribution businesses. After all, banking laws and pension arrangements differ so much by country, there is little room for synergy.
But … the real benefit of global marketing is not so much in saving costs and reducing risk by running the same, proven promotional campaigns everywhere. The real benefit is in more quickly identifying product winners and bringing them to market faster.
Here is an example. The Munsons love Cascade tablets. It’s a much easier way to load the dishwasher, which runs twice a day in our big family. Where did they come from? The answer is Austria. Benckiser’s Calgonit was the first automatic dishwashing detergent to make a big play with tablets. It was OK. But the big event was when competitor Henkel – who dominates the German market with Somat – made a much better tablet line extension. Somat Tabs became the leading innovation for major pushes in France and Germany in the early ‘nineties. Procter had to take notice and defend. Ultimately it took the tablet innovation and ran it through its entire geography – including the USA. Henkel has not been a player here at all, until acquiring Dial and Purex. And Reckitt Benckiser has yet to achieve a truly threatening critical mass. But that doesn’t matter. Procter went from defensive to offensive anyway. And that’s the real power of global marketing – pre-empting the competition with great product and service ideas from elsewhere.
Now, even though financial services product distribution is very different in different parts of the world, I would look at five emerging global players in US banking. As laws change – permitting not only interstate banking but also multiple location intrastate banking – there is a lot of consolidation going on. No news there. But some of the non-US acquirers are getting aggressive. We may look to them to import best practice from their “home office” to the US. These will be the “Cascade tablets” of US banking:
- Royal Bank of Scotland – Look to the outstanding customer service value proposition extended to the Citizens’ Bank franchise in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
- Toronto Dominion Bank - TD Banknorth and TD Waterhouse will get more aggressive and offer fuller arrays of services than their size permitted before. It’s not just re-naming the Boston Garden again.
- Internationale Nederlanden Groep, aka “ING” – Start from the ground up and see if the ING Direct concept can expand from a core group of 7 yuppie cities and really be the Amazon.com of the banking business. Watch the Dutch!
- Hong Kong-Shanghai Banking Corporation, aka “HSBC” – The most intrusive banking signage in New York City, but really the third-largest banking group in the world with US headquarters in Buffalo, NY (old Marine Midland). Could they become a national banking presence in the US to rival Citi and B of A?
- ABN-AMRO – The Dutch mid-market commercial banking powerhouse has taken the revered LaSalle name from its Illinois base and extended it to former Standard Federal territory in Michigan and Indiana. How fast can they absorb their acquisitions and march West and East? Will they scoop up the mid-market faster than anyone else?
