Bank of America's Anne Finucane

By Gregory Comolli, Charles Schwab & Company, Inc.

“Nothing short of an economic crisis could keep me from the ANA conference.”  Unfortunately, Bank of America CMO Anne Finucane’s commitment to be in

Orlando

was in fact uprooted by what has been occurring on Wall Street.  Instead of delivering her message in person, Anne spoke to the conference via video and left the Q&A portion to two of her senior leaders.

Anne began her presentation with a brief, yet very sobering, compilation of news clips that summarized the current economic crisis.  “The topic of growth may be counterintuitive in a time like this,” Anne mentioned, “but it is what Bank of America is committed to now and moving forward.”  To highlight this commitment to growth, Anne mentioned their recent acquisition of Countrywide Bank and Merrill Lynch.  While she could not mention the Merrill acquisition in more detail due to regulatory concerns, their purchase of Countrywide demonstrated that Bank of America is committed to helping people achieve the quintessential American dream – home ownership.

Anne next touched on Bank of

America

’s brand positioning, Bank of Opportunity, which launched two years ago and works effectively not only for

U.S.

based consumers but also for those on a global level.  People have always associated

America

with opportunity and Anne gave everyone in the crowd a brief history lesson of this American ideal.  Opportunity is an effective brand platform not only for those

U.S.

consumers but also those who live abroad and may be seeking a new start in

America

.  Positioning themselves as the Bank of Opportunity has led to numerous industry leading stats:  #1 consumer bank in the country, #1 brand recognition among competitive set, 59 million

U.S.

households.

Effective advertising research and consumer trends helped Bank of America achieve success with two of their recent initiatives – the Keep the Change program and the acquisition of U.S. Trust.  For Keep the Change, Bank of America tapped into the declining trend of the American savings rate and the feedback they received from consumers asking for help to develop better saving habits.  This combination of a declining savings trend and direct consumer insight lead to a rather simple idea of rounding purchases to the nearest dollar and then putting that difference directly into a savings account.  Keep the Change has helped over 8 million people enrolled in the program save over $1 billion dollars.  While Keep the Change seems to be geared more towards the everyday Bank of America customer, Anne mentioned how their recent acquisition of U.S. Trust has helped make inroads among high net worth individuals.  Again, Anne mentioned that effective advertising research helped Bank of America craft communications that tapped directly into consumer insights.  Anne discussed how these high-net worth individuals achieved wealth through old fashioned hard work and did not like being labeled as wealthy.  The creative for both initiatives shared was an effective interpretation of the research findings.

Marketing in a crisis is something everyone hopes to avoid and the Q&A session brought out some important points to consider when marketers are faced with such an issue.  Ann Saunders, a member of Anne’s marketing team, brought up some important points when marketers are faced with such a crisis:  Be able to adapt advertising and marketing messaging quickly in order to remain relevant and always understand the concerns of consumers – two lessons applicable across all industries.

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