Fireside Forums Ablaze with Compelling Research from FT

One of the highlights of our annual Race for Kids ski weekend is the Fireside Forums, which we host over two days at the Stowe Mountain Lodge.  Bill Wreaks, CEO of The Gramercy Institute, moderates several panel discussions with top execs from leading financial marketers.  This year, Daniel Rothman, the Financial Times Director of Research, Americas, helped set the stage for the Forums by providing the audience with some new research findings.  I asked Daniel to provide a write-up for this blog.  Any questions on the below information can be directed to daniel.rothman@ft.com.


Traditional Media
There is no question there is tremendous buzz and excitement surrounding the explosion of mobile devices (in particular smart phones and tablets) and what it means for financial marketers going forward. However, it is essential that we not forget that traditional media is still vitally important to senior executives and other affluent targets that financial service firms are trying to reach and influence.

According to the World Trade Press report this year, newspapers still reach more people than the internet as a whole; on a typical day about 20% more. Despite the phenomenal growth and adaptability of digital media, in senior business circles, print is still seen as the most reliable source for business and international news.

It is important for marketers to consider the media adoption and level of engagement not just based on the target audience level of seniority, but also where they are located - as all geographies are not equal in their media adoption. The 2011 FT Bank Image Survey asks global investment banking decision makers which media they use to stay informed about development in their industry and about banking in general. The findings revealed that:

• Newspapers are far more important to Asia residents vs. other decision makers residing outside Asia
• Conferences are more important to decision makers residing in the Emerging Markets
• Business Television is more important to Asia residents
• News Websites via Mobile Devices are more important to residents of America and the Emerging Markets.

These examples demonstrate the unique positioning of each media within different markets, and the need to think regional as it relates to media consumption behavior.

Tablets and Mobile Usage
Accord to the IPSOS BE:USA 2011 (Business Elite) survey, 49% of business executives within large companies already own a tablet device. The 2011 FT Global Business Outlook Survey revealed many interesting findings as to how senior executives feel about tablets and their usage behavior. 53% access work email on their tablet; 38% say their tablet is replacing usage of PC/laptops; and 33% watch TV programs/video on their tablets. The FT global executives see their tablets as a work tool in addition to a leisure device.

When looking at global executive usage of mobile devices, 51% do not turn off their device while on holiday/vacation and 49% do not turn it off at night/weekends. This compares to 100% of FCS Race for Kids attendees that never “turn off” their devices via the informal survey of those in attendance at the 2012 Fireside Forum session.

Marketers need to recognize that not every message will resonate on every media platform. Given the dramatic adoption of mobile and tablets, the FT Global Business Outlook Survey asked executives globally to identify what they feel each media is best at communicating to clients, compared with traditional media. Executives told us that smart phones have very low effectiveness at all funnel stages in the communication process - whether at driving brand/company awareness, driving loyalty or prompting the user to take an action. (This could be a reflection of the relative early stage of smart phone advertising, or the level of B2C advertiser adoption vs. B2B). Alternatively, tablets are best at providing detailed information about a company/brand/product, and perform fairly well at influencing perceptions of whether a brand is of high quality/trusted brand, and prompting the user to take an action. The tablet perception is very similar to PC/laptops in its effectiveness by marketing funnel stage, however just not as pronounced in performance effectiveness.

-- Daniel Rothman, daniel.rothman@ft.com