Voices: the CMB Blog

Last week we released our latest CMB Consumer Pulse study shedding light on consumers’ perspective around mobile banking. The most interesting finding to me is around where the new growth will come from in this market and it’s not from current smartphone owners.

Among those who have a smartphone, but aren’t conducting mobile banking…they aren’t likely to start anytime soon –mainly due to security concerns or the fact that they just don’t value the convenience. On the other hand, of those likely to buy a smartphone, many (about two in five) are likely to begin mobile banking once the phone is in their hands. 

The reality is mobile banking among current smartphone owners has essentially plateaued.  For the most part, people with experience using these devices have already made up their minds.  Is it possible to convince them otherwise?  Maybe, but why not go for those consumers who are ready and willing, just not able, unless of course banks give them to tools they need…

There’s a group out there that’s ready to bank on their smartphones in the very near future – no questions asked.  Given how affordable smartphones have become (you’ve seen the Apple commercials for the $50 iPhone 3GS), it’s worth considering partnered promotions to draw new smartphone buyers to the bank.  

Instead of focusing on the smartphone/tablet owners who have just not bought in to mobile banking, why not go for the lower hanging fruit and focus on those that have bought in but need the technology to make it happen?

Posted by Jim Garrity. Jim Garrity is VP of CMB's Financial Services practice, never wears blue jeans to work, and loves the convenience of banking.

Download our recent Consumer Pulse report: A Consumer Perspective on Mobile Banking. It looks at how smartphone and tablet owners are conducting mobile banking and transactions on their mobile device.

I recently went to see Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris movie and I am still thinking about it.  My husband and I have been talking about it in snatches since we walked out.  It is what you might call a thinking person’s movie.

In Allen’s movie, Gil, the protagonist, seeks the intoxicating time in Paris that followed World War 1, the 1920s, when so many writers and artists lived and started careers in Paris.  Yet, we only know so much about their lives in the 1920s and we only know about their successes and dramatic failures, if any.   Gil – and we -- are not able to “live” the day to day toil and grind that T.S. Elliott and Faulkner faced as they produced work after marvelous literary work.   Yet, it was the detail and grind in which they spent their lives that produced the masterpieces that we are all so familiar with.

What Roger (my husband) and I took away was a blatant, clear realization that although the past– near and far- often seems so much better, more fun and exciting and . . . . fill in the blank, the absolute best time is the present.  It is now -- today -- that we can experience the changes in the world and make our own mark.

The world of market research is so different than it was when Chadwick Martin Bailey started in 1984.  Back then it was all about the advent of personal computers and software that we could use to analyze data that could only be previously analyzed on mainframes.  Market research startups started with a flourish. Opportunity was everywhere.

Small companies that could never use market research or have it available to them were able to gain market insights that previously were only available to large companies.  Some used it well and prospered.  We know them as household names today.   It was a revolutionary time in market research and it was fun.   It was also hard work and for our employees, it was a continual learning experience.

Today, market research has evolved!  It has grown up, it is everywhere and new technologies and developed databases allow for insights that we could never conceive in the 1980s.  Now consumers get questionnaires almost every time they buy something.    Samples, data collection techniques, analysis methods – all have changed and continue to evolve.  Things are moving so fast, one has to constantly be learning just to stay abreast. 

Is the change for the better or worse?  As in Allen’s movie, it is easy to look back and be nostalgic.  Yet, when you think of what is possible today, when you think of what we can do by combining technology with perceptual market feedback and then analyze for insights, we are living in an exciting time, the present time- the time to leave our mark. 

Woody Allen was right.  A prior era, the 1980s, was a wonderful time to be in market research.  Today is even better- filled with new possibilities and great opportunity.

Posted by Anne Bailey Berman. Anne is the President of Chadwick Martin Bailey and enjoys volunteering in the community, traveling with her family and spending time in her vegetable garden.