Free Pineapples

Gimmicks, fads and something for nothing marketing campaigns will always attract a certain element of attention from the wider public, but often loyalty is not part of the mix.

Online savings focused ING Direct is one of the market leaders in building brand awareness, yet struggles at growing market share.

A marketing focus on promotional interest had recently been a cornerstone aspect of the ING Direct customer acquisition campaign, where new customers receive an additional interest rate boost for a given period.

Consumers do not however consider promotional rates as an important driver behind their decision making when placing funds in savings accounts, instead being driven strongly the base rate on offer.

Respondents to a CoreData study and commissioned by finance product comparator InfoChoice were asked to allocate 100 points across five different interest rate attributes, with higher point allocations identifying greater importance.

Introductory/promotional rates were allocated just 6 per cent of points, with the base rate more than half at 51 per cent.

Bonus/conditional rates were received just as poorly with on a 10 per cent weighting of points.

ING Direct is now moving from offering higher interest to giving actual cash, in the form of a $50 cash bonus via a new customer acquisition strategy, for new accounts opened in what the bank has termed ‘Savings Week’ and is running this week (May 4 to May 9).

Hopefully from ING’s perspective the free pineapple (the Aussie nickname for a $50 dollar note due to colour) will help reverse the deposit bleeding at the bank.

The ING Direct deposit book has fallen two per cent, or $329 million to $16.6 billion, in the year to March 2009.

At the same time banks operating in Australia increased their deposit levels by a combined 24 per cent, according to the latest Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) household statistics.