CardMarketing 2.0

Card Marketing 2.0 isn't just about how issuers can use the internet to market their products. It also looks at how the more personalised and engaging 'two-way' communication strategies underlying Web 2.0 can be integrated into conventional offline channels. There's no better example of this, at present, than LaSalle Bank of Chicago's use of its Illiniois ATM network to market to new and existing customers.

To promote its sponsorship of Chicago's Shamrock Shuffle race taking place on March 25, every one of the 450 ATMs is broadcasting an 11-second colour video clip of a previous race — people applauding and cheering as the participants run by. It's a simple idea but one that differentiates LaSalle and makes it really stand out. What's more, it was easy for LaSalle to do as it's using the latest open-platform Microsoft Windows technology and multi-vendor software.

There's got to be huge potential here for issuers to market their cards. After all, new technology means that ATMs no longer have to be functional pieces of metal and plastic but can be 100% personalised, fully focused on the individual that happens to be using them. This is what is meant by atomisation — breaking the ATM experience down into a million different, much improved mini-experiences that form a closer bond between user and bank.

For example, we've had personal ring tones on our mobile phones for years now, so isn't it about time ATMs started playing our favourite tunes back to us as we use them? That can't be hard, surely? And with the phenomenal success of UGC (user-generated content) sites and channels such as YouTube and Current TV, isn't it about time people could upload small video clips to a bank's website that would play back to them and make them laugh when it's sleeting outside and they're soaked through? Alternatively, if a bank offers a card customisation programme, why can't the screen background immediately change to the image people have on their card every time they insert their personalised plastic into the ATM? Now that, that's a touch.

In short, why can't the ATM be another way for banks to connect with their cardholders, and build longer-term, more lucrative relationships in the process? With next generation technology and software, why do ATMs have to be functional? Well, financial services research firm, Celent, says they no longer have to be.

In a report (Next-Generation ATM Software: From Multivendor to Multichannel) published at the end of February, Madhavi Mantha, the author and a senior analyst at Celent, argues that the increasing take-up of a common operating system (Windows), coupled with the emergence of multivendor software supporting interoperability, and a move toward IP-based networks, means the ATM no longer has to be a convenience device but can be a relationship device. It can now act as a 'strategic component of a broader multichannel strategy' that is 'focused on providing a consistent user experience across ATMs and channels'.

With the above in mind, isn't the ATM acronym of 'Automated Teller Machine' a little passé? Certainly seems so. How about 'Ah, There's Me' instead? Now that, for cardholders, would be infinitely more appealing.