Why Capital One, Klarna & Coinbase Win AI Search

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Jim Marous (00:11):

Most banks believe that brand strength comes from size or advertising spend. And it's not even from SEO, the reality is the way organizations get found today is much different than it's ever been before. But when consumers ask ChatGPT for financial recommendations, what's interesting is the same handful of brands keep on appearing over and over again, and some of these would surprise you.

Jim Marous (00:38):

And according to research from EMARKETER, companies like Capital One, Karna, Coinbase, PayPal, and Discover are separating themselves from much of the banking industry in AI visibility. Today, I'm joined by a good friend of mine, Tiffani Montez, Principal Analyst for Financial Services at EMARKETER.

Jim Marous (00:58):

We're going to discuss what the AI Visibility Index revealed about consumer trust, financial marketing, and why some brands are becoming far more visible than others in this new era of digital discovery. So, Tiffani, it's great to finally have you on the show.

Jim Marous (01:14):

As we discussed at an event a month ago, and also before we get on, it is amazing I haven't had you on before because I've known you for a long time, and we've both been in the industry for a long time. But you came out with a recent research thing that really piqued my curiosity around AI visibility.

Jim Marous (01:33):

And you came up with this term AI Visibility Index, which is really a new kind of measurement, not just for financial services, but beyond financial services. So, what was the original idea behind building this, and what surprised you the most by the first rankings?

Tiffani Montez (01:51):

Yeah, absolutely. So, first, thank you so much for inviting me. You and I have been friends for, I think, longer than I think both of us want to actually admit, even though it is a great friendship. We're not going to give years. So, I'm so excited to be here with you today to talk about the AI Visibility Index.

Tiffani Montez (02:10):

When I start thinking about the original idea around why we decided to create it, it is actually pretty simple. We know that consumers are increasingly using AI platforms to discover products and services, and that visibility inside those systems is becoming strategically important.

Tiffani Montez (02:28):

And so, to put that comment into context, we know about a quarter of US internet users will use Gen AI for shopping-related tasks in 2026, according to our forecast. And what that actually means is that AI is starting to influence considerations well before consumers ever reach a brand's website or app, which is typically where they're discovering financial products and services.

Tiffani Montez (02:55):

So, really, our research was designed to help capture how many consumers are actually using AI for product discovery. And to do that, we analyzed thousands of ChatGPT responses across nine categories in financial services using standard customer prompts, so how customers actually ask questions in real life, and tested that both with and without real-time web-enabled search.

Tiffani Montez (03:23):

And if I start to think about what surprised me the most is how concentrated visibility already is. So, we know that it's a relatively small group of brands that are dominating recommendations. And in many cases, they aren't the largest financial institutions, so I think that was sort of one big surprise.

Tiffani Montez (03:43):

And then the second one is that we're already starting to see how quickly even small ranking shifts can happen from month to month as AI visibility is far more dynamic than traditional search rankings.

Jim Marous (04:00):

It's interesting, when I looked at the research you did, it was not just those that ranked near the top. So, Capital One led the rankings, and that was not a complete surprise, but it was a surprise how there's some in the top five bank categories that didn't rank, and they fell compared to the old Google thing.

Jim Marous (04:20):

And for me, when I do a Siri test, what ends up interesting is that now it defers to, do you want ChatGPT to answer this question, as it does when I'm doing it on the computer. So, more and more, we're being almost fed into the AI rankings as opposed to a traditional search.

Jim Marous (04:38):

Now, even though these were the ones that did best nationally, I think what we can learn from this is, how do we get rankings better using AI tools? How do we set it up so that at least we come in really well when we're doing the local search if you're a smaller financial institution? So, what is Capital One doing differently that makes them consistently visible among the AI-generated recommendations?

Tiffani Montez (05:05):

Yeah, I think Capital One, again, we're doing this every single month, so month to month, Capital One has placed at the top. And I think what we can say about Capital One is that they've spent years being very clear about who they are and what they offer. And they repeat their positioning around simplicity, accessibility, and digital convenience.

Tiffani Montez (05:27):

And one of the things that we know about AI product discovery, is that clarity is actually what wins. So, the brands that perform the best are the ones that have very little ambiguity around who they are, what they stand for, and what they should be recommended for.

Tiffani Montez (05:46):

And so, when you start to think about brands like Capital One, in addition to just being clear about who they are, in AI-generated results, it also rewards those that have strong customer satisfaction, positive reviews of their brand, and high digital engagement. And not only visibility in their internal assets, but actually also broad visibility across social and third-party platforms.

Tiffani Montez (06:14):

And so, we know that AI models are interpreting the results that they're seeing, for example, in social media, to help determine trust and relevancy, and they're using that to help decide what brands actually get shown, and get shown first.

Jim Marous (06:30):

And maybe you told this in your answer, but how does a traditional (what I'm going to call SEO) ranking and visibility look like compared to a GEO, more of an AI-generated thing? Because Capital One would be strong in both assets, but as your research showed, for instance, Wells Fargo did much better in a traditional search than they do in an AI search.

Jim Marous (06:53):

How does an organization reset what they can do from a month-to-month basis to make it so they rank well in both categories?

Tiffani Montez (07:03):

So, one of the things that I think about when I start thinking about SEO versus GEO or Generative Engine Optimization, is that SEO rewards, I would say, more on a taxonomy basis of how banks describe their products and services.

Tiffani Montez (07:19):

So, as an industry, we've done a great job of orienting consumers to how we talk about financial products and services, and how we talk about the solutions that we offer to them to solve their problems. When we think about GEO, it is really more use case-driven. And so, it is someone saying, “I have this need, and here are the conditions of my need, and I'm going to ask you those questions in the language that I use.”

Tiffani Montez (07:47):

And then it goes out and looks and says, “What is the actual prompt that the consumer asked for? What are the products that align with that prompt?” And then it's going a layer deeper to say, what brands can you trust based on what the consumer described as being important to them to give a recommendation?

Tiffani Montez (08:06):

And so, there's kind of two aspects of GEO. So, it's the brand mention or the recommendation aspect of it, and then it's also which one is recommended first? And those two oftentimes don't go hand-in-hand. You can be mentioned, but you may not be mentioned first. And so, that is also sort of a major difference between SEO and GEO.

Jim Marous (08:29):

I think it's interesting, too, your first comment about Capital One and what they do differently. I think the whole issue around – and we talk about it in conferences in different contexts, but if you know your North Star, if you know in a very defined way who you are and what you do, like Capital One does, there's no ambiguity, as you said, around what are they, and they have a differentiated brand. So, it’s not only narrow and focused, but it’s different than the masses.

Jim Marous (09:00):

So, what ends up happening, and I'm finding this on my own on the podcast actually, as we stay in our lane, and get really good at what we're good at and don't try to just pick up words or things that might categorize us in a good way in our minds, the reality is it works against you in a GEO world, where really they're saying, do I consistently see you as being top of brand in that category?

Jim Marous (09:26):

One of the fascinating things in your findings was the split between, let's say, legacy issuers in credit cards versus those maybe fintechs that dominate buy now, pay later and some other categories. So, what does it say about consumer trust in brand positioning today with the legacy or the fintech brands going against each other?

Tiffani Montez (09:53):

So, one of the most interesting findings, if I think about legacy versus traditional, is how much trust plays into where people show up today. And so, if I think about legacy issuers and you think about credit cards as an example, most of those are dominated by legacy issuers, and you'll see that in our results.

Tiffani Montez (10:15):

When you start to look at fintechs, those much more are controlled by buy now, pay later as an example companies. And if you start to break down what that actually means, it tells us that customers aren't thinking about trust uniformly, they're thinking about trust and tied to an actual financial moment in an experience.

Tiffani Montez (10:38):

And so, if we break that down, consumers may trust large banks for traditional credit products, but they may associate their needs with fintechs much more closely aligned to flexibility, embedded solutions and even short-term installments.

Tiffani Montez (10:55):

So, it's not really just about the positioning, many of these fintechs also generate strong customer satisfaction, positive reviews and higher social engagement, all of which enforce visibility and recommendations in a GEO environment.

Jim Marous (11:12):

So, it's interesting, your research looks at many different categories for financial services, and one being the fact that Coinbase, interestingly, had one of the widest leads in any category. But part of that is because their brand is synonymous with the category that they're in.

Jim Marous (11:33):

What can traditional financial institutions kind of figure out from what Coinbase has done? Should they be becoming more synonymous with specific segments or significant products or something like that, whereby if somebody is looking for this, then this is the brand, even if it's out of your geographic territory, that you really should go to?

Tiffani Montez (11:54):

Yeah, I think that probably one of the most important things is category ownership like you said. So, trying to figure out what it is that you stand for, and then making sure that you are consistently showing up under that context, and that you're really clear on what your value proposition is, what specific need that you are solving, and making that repeatable over time.

Tiffani Montez (12:17):

There should be very little ambiguity in the problem that you're trying to solve or in the moment that you should be recommended. So, as you said earlier, Coinbase is a really great example. They did have the widest lead in any category in the index, which also shows how powerful category ownership is when a brand can tightly associate themselves with the customer need.

Tiffani Montez (12:42):

And for many traditional institutions, the message becomes more diluted when they try to be everything to everyone all at one time. Because we know that AI systems reward simplicity much more than they reward breadth.

Jim Marous (12:56):

That's interesting. So, maybe under that scenario, somebody like SoFi that was known for student loan financing, and has now expanded to broader financial services, they're going to be challenged to own or to at least rank high in a category that they're not known for, right?

Tiffani Montez (13:17):

Yeah, it will be more challenging. But if they do a good job as they've done with aligning themselves around that, whatever the new products that they're offering around that customer need, and they're making sure that they are using clear terms that a customer would use to describe whatever it is that they're trying to solve for in that prompt, then that is where they'll do well.

Jim Marous (13:41):

So, you've been watching the financial service industry for a long time, and you get some advantage on having that early lead. We're finding out that traditional financial services are not doing really well at generating brand new accounts in the acquisition area. We find that Chime has a bigger account opening than even Chase right now as far as checking accounts.

Jim Marous (14:08):

So, if I'm a financial marketer, what should I be doing in my AI world to maybe reset the way I market so I can come up higher up in the rankings in, let's say, just in a general acquisition funnel instead of simply visibility?

Tiffani Montez (14:29):

I think it really comes down to demonstrating the trust aspect. So, I think that is sort of one of the biggest differences between SEO and GEO, is that this element of trust and really understanding what customer satisfaction and customer sentiment is towards a brand.

Tiffani Montez (14:46):

And so, even if you look at the visibility results and you compared it, for example, to something like JD Power's customer satisfaction, you're going to see some alignment. And so, the first thing I would say is making sure that you are clear on why an actual — like a customer should trust your brand over another one, and demonstrating that.

Tiffani Montez (15:09):

The second one is that you're making sure that you are thinking about your product in a way that really clearly articulates how you're solving an actual customer need and really going through some of your journeys to decide what is the path that a consumer would use to go educate themselves about this product and this solution? And am I describing my products and services in a way that aligns with that? Would be the biggest thing and change that the financial institutions are going to have to think about.

Jim Marous (15:42):

So, again, putting on your financial marketing hat, that you take it off ever at EMARKETER – but if I'm trying to emphasize to financial institutions how important a three-minute or five-minute digital account opening experience is for checking accounts, that actually, if you do well at promoting the fact that you have the fastest one in the marketplace or that it makes it real easy and consumers start to recognize that and posting about that, that actually will help you significantly in GEO where maybe being the biggest bank might have been the only thing that would … if somebody was doing a question, where should I open my checking account in my neighborhood, maybe the biggest banks would have won it every time, while now it may be those that do the best at doing that?

Tiffani Montez (16:29):

Yeah. Even if I think about, I'll use an example of, I think account opening and where I think that makes a difference. So, one of the categories that we have in the nine categories that we have in our leaderboard for our AI Visibility Index is loans. And the company that consistently shows up first in loans is SoFi.

Tiffani Montez (16:50):

And when we think about SoFi and we think about easy account opening, quick funding, great customer satisfaction, someone that's there in moments, probably socially, then other brands, I think that can demonstrate really easily for you how you add the components of account opening and onboarding in terms of the way that you talk about your products, as you just mentioned, by really describing what is the benefit for not only why you should select that brand over another brand, but why you should actually apply.

Jim Marous (17:27):

So, it's interesting, because then we use the term, if you build it, then they'll come, and it's really not that way with any of these things. And I worked with an institution, gosh, two years ago now, that they had what I consider to be the best account opening experience I've ever seen, and they're going, “We haven't seen the list we expected.”

Jim Marous (17:46):

Well, they were a digital bank to begin with, but the problem was, they never promoted the fact that they were better than everyone else in the marketplace. So, sometimes, you've got to toot your own horn so that consumers start to relate to you as that way, and start reviewing you as saying, “I was really happy that they did exactly what they said they were going to do, which was easier account opening,” so that when somebody says, “Where should I open it?” you're going to rank higher.

Jim Marous ():

It's interesting, we're talking about financial services, but you're tracking other industries as well. How do the financial services industry compare when it comes to AI visibility and digital market maturity – how does financial services compare to some of the other industries you track?

Tiffani Montez (18:26):

So, when I think about financial services, it's really fascinating because as I mentioned earlier, trust matters much more than any of the other sectors. But that differentiation is becoming a lot harder. So, when we start thinking about AI Visibility Index, every industry develops its own, we'll call it visibility pattern.

Tiffani Montez (18:48):

And one of the other visibility indexes that we do, which is beauty and personal care, as an example, legacy brands in that visibility index dominate to categories that are tied to trust and consistency. And while the newer disruptive brands that show up on the AI visibility index for, we'll call it, trend-driven categories like makeup.

Tiffani Montez (19:17):

So, when you start to think about it is, depending on the type of beauty and personal care, trust matters more, and if it's something that we'll call it is trendy like makeup, then you're starting to see more disruptive brands show up in those.

Jim Marous (19:33):

So, financial marketers should really look at the category they're in and to continually evaluate, because I'm sure it shifts over time or could shift over time, to find out where do I have to be strongest? How do I define my organization in a world that's being driven by the way customers ask the questions, the way the answers are created?

Jim Marous (19:55):

If I'm a financial marketer and I'm looking for ways to say, where do I start there, where do they start? Where do you start if you're a midsize or a small financial institution? Where would you start if you're a financial marketer at a financial institution – where would you start to build a better ability to ramp up on the GEO rankings?

Tiffani Montez (20:19):

There's a couple things that come to mind if I just keep it simple, and it goes back to some of the things that we've already been talking about. So, making sure that you are clear about the categories that you want to own, that you are using strong language that is familiar to a consumer, and how they describe financial products.

Tiffani Montez (20:39):

And maybe you need to sit down and actually do some journey mapping and do some descriptions, and get away from the taxonomy on your website and think about it, put yourself in your customer's shoes and think about, if I didn't have experience with financial products and services, what is the simplest way that I would describe my need?

Tiffani Montez (20:57):

The other part is having high engagement with your brand. And so, if you think about some of the people that show up well, like PayPal is a great example, they have high engagement across multiple categories. So, their brand is already strongly understood for being attached to certain terms.

Tiffani Montez (21:15):

And then I would say the last thing is being very clear on the problem that you're trying to solve and the moment that you should be recommended in. So, when you start to think about it from that perspective, you're going to have strong digital engagement and category associated with your brand, and that is what is actually going to increase the amount your brand mentions in GEO.

Jim Marous (21:41):

So, would that mean organizations like Bank of America, who has Erica and organizations like Ally, who tend to communicate with their customers a lot more frequently on things that they're offering – but even those organizations that are building agentic tools from a consumer engagement perspective, they're going to end up being the ones that probably get the early lead or consistent lead with regard to the GEO search?

Tiffani Montez (22:12):

Yeah, I think that plays into it, absolutely. The amount of times that you're interacting and you're interacting with those types of technologies, you're going to naturally get mentioned more. Again, I would still caveat that to say, there's a big element of trust and customer satisfaction that goes along with that, so it's got to be good engagement.

Tiffani Montez (22:33):

And so, if it's bad engagement and they're not satisfied, then that's not going to help you, but focusing on being good at the engagement will.

Jim Marous (22:40):

Good point. A lot of complaints is engagement, but that's not the one we want.

Tiffani Montez (22:46):

We want good engagement, not bad engagement.

Jim Marous (22:48):

Exactly. When you talk about social media, a lot of organizations are getting on social channels and trying to build brand that way as well. What are the risks and rewards of social media posting? And maybe it's on what you've already talked about, that continually reinforce the category you want to be the best at. Don't try to hit upon everything, but is it consistency and cadence?

Tiffani Montez (23:14):

Yeah, it is consistency and cadence and aligned with being clear about what it is that you're trying to solve, and what you offer is what I would say. The second part I would also say is that there's other people out there talking about your brands whether you like it or not.

Tiffani Montez (23:32):

So, also, making sure that you're staying on top of sort of the sediment of your brand on social media, and doing what you can to make sure that you are reinforcing not only who you are and what you do, but how you do actually solve, we'll call it friction in the customer experience.

Jim Marous (23:51):

Let's take a short break here and recognize the sponsor of this podcast.

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Jim Marous (23:58):

You do a lot of research for EMARKETER beyond simply the AI scoring that you're doing right now as far as being able to be identified. When you look at the industry as a whole right now, when you looked at 2026 and what your projections were from a marketing standpoint, where are traditional financial institutions struggling the most from your perspective when it comes to the basics of brand, differentiation, relevance, engagement? What are the biggest challenges industry-wide beyond simply looking at the AI Visibility Index just as a broader category?

Tiffani Montez (24:40):

So, if I think about institutions, the institutions that adapt best to the shifts in the industry are really ones that are focused on evolving consumer behavior rather than defending their legacy structures. And so, what I mean by that is that they simplify experiences, they tightly position who they are in the market, and they move quickly to discover patterns of change. And I think that's one of the biggest differentiators that we see in the market, is this alignment.

Tiffani Montez (25:16):

And so, when we start to think about consumer behavior in the institutions that do well, the ones that do well are able to connect their teams, their data, their channels, their customer journeys to really be able to deliver a coordinated experience in moments that matter. And so, if I start thinking about some of the things in the future that financial institutions should be focused on, one of the big things that I'd say is focus on precision over breadth.

Tiffani Montez (25:45):

And so, if I think about one of the shifts, which, again, we talked about is GEO, make sure that you are tightly associating your brand to a specific customer needs, and that you are focused on aligning your content to real intent-driven queries using natural language and reinforcing the signals across your websites, your reviews, social media platforms, partnerships, third-party sources, et cetera.

Tiffani Montez (26:14):

One of the other shifts outside of marketing as you mentioned, Jim, that we cover is, one of the areas that I've spent the most time on, is really talking about, we'll call it financial distribution. So, AI platforms, wallets, marketplaces, embedded finance, all of that is becoming the new discovery layer for financial services.

Tiffani Montez (26:37):

And consumers are increasingly expecting seamless embedded and predictive experiences. And one of the challenges for many banks is they still operate around product silos and product channels. So, if I think about an example of where I think things are headed, payments is a great example.

Tiffani Montez (26:57):

So, we know that digital wallets are no longer just payment tools, they're evolving into commerce orchestrators that will influence decisions before, during, and after a transaction, which means that banking is going to move much closer to moments of decision with guidance, financing, rewards, and payments, all embedded directly into a wallet. And that is going to change the dynamics of banking.

Tiffani Montez (27:25):

Banks are no longer going to own the full customer experience or the customer journey. And the institutions that are going to be able to stay relevant are going to be the ones that simplify financial lives and show up naturally in moments that matter to deliver coordinated experiences, not only within their own mobile channels, but across partners and platforms.

Tiffani Montez (27:48):

And really, if I start thinking about all of that in combination with GEO, as we talked about, and the ability to move from product-centric banking to customer-centric banking, I think those are the things that institutions should be looking at, and how do you remain relevant when you have all these underlying shifts going on?

Jim Marous (28:09):

It’s interesting, Tiffani, we've talked about those terms forever. I mean for me, 50 years, I want to be personalized, I want to segment a marketplace. I want to be when the person's ready to make a purchase, I want to be there. I need to build the marketing – I mean, all these things with all the noise and all that.

Jim Marous (28:25):

But I think what's interesting now is the tools are available to actually do this at speed and at scale, no matter how big your institution is. And you have partners out there that will bring you those tools in a way that you would not have been able to build yourself. If you have “bad data,” that is no longer an excuse for not moving forward because these partners have ways to work around your bad data because they do it with a lot of other partners-

Tiffani Montez (28:54):

Yeah, plenty of people will help you with that.

Jim Marous (28:55):

And move forward. In addition, you have the technology to be able to deliver instantaneous responses. I call it the GPS of financial services, where you have this forward view that you can now share with the consumer and with your staff.

Jim Marous (29:10):

So, if you distribute the data and insights, not only can you see it as a customer, but my tellers can be able to see it, my call center reps can be able to see it, my person who sends out emails for the financial institution can see it. The challenge is, are you going to actually have the courage to deploy against that, and I think that's where I see the biggest challenges.

Jim Marous (29:36):

While the capabilities are there, is the leadership and culture going to be there where they're actually going to implement what's possible or simply follow the leaders and those aren't really that far ahead going forward.

Jim Marous (29:51):

You and I have been in this industry for a long time, and I tell people, honestly, it has never been more exciting. What excites you the most about the financial services industry today from a marketing perspective?

Tiffani Montez (30:05):

I think the thing that I'm the most excited about is the opportunity. So, you mentioned earlier that we have all this different technology, and we have the data. So, I am the most excited to see if banks can actually get out of their own way and look at what customer need is, knowing that all this technology is there. And to also understand, I mean, if I think about personalization, and all the things that we've been talking about for decades, I'll say it.

Tiffani Montez (30:36):

One of the biggest challenges is, if you start thinking about using all those technologies, and how consumers live their everyday life, and they interact with lots of other companies, it is going to require banks to rethink the banking model from the ground up, in terms of what they offer, how they offer it, and where they show up, and even how they deliver financial experiences.

Tiffani Montez (31:01):

And I think I'm excited that we are starting to see that banking is broken down enough, and consumer behavior is changing so fast that we have no other choice than to do something now. There's no longer waiting, and so I'm excited that I think there's many more people in this last year that see that they have to make a change, and so I'm excited to see if they're actually going to do something about it.

Jim Marous (31:26):

What concerns you the most about what you see in (and maybe it's the opposite of what you just said) those people that don't do that, but what concerns you most about the financial marketing field?

Jim Marous (31:36):

Because somebody came up to me at an event I was in the Middle East, and they had just graduated. They had a master's in marketing, and said, “What can you tell me?” I said, “Love it right now what you just learned. It's good for about three or four years. You better keep on learning because whatever you learned is going to be out of date five years from now.”

Jim Marous (31:56):

Now, we're talking about people like you and I, if we're not continually educating ourselves, we're already out of date because things have changed so much up to this point. So, when you look at that, what is the challenge you see down the road for institutions that maybe don't respond exactly the way you think they should?

Tiffani Montez (32:18):

I've said this in other contexts. When I think about the banking industry in general, it's a very saturated market. And we know there's going to be consolidation, even though we have new entrants coming.

Tiffani Montez (32:33):

But even if we think about the new entrants that are coming, they're focused on building better banks. And yes, it means they're building more and in my opinion, we don't need more banks, we need better banks. And as a result of that, I think the biggest risk for traditional financial institutions is that they are so stuck in the way that they make money today that they're going to leave money on the table.

Tiffani Montez (33:00):

And one of the things that we've seen with the neobanks is that they've monetized all the things that traditional banks don't want to monetize. They've served the need, and they've made money on that need because none of the other traditional banks want to do it.

Tiffani Montez (33:14):

And so, I think the biggest risk is that you continue doing the same thing, and you continue making money the same way that you've made money, and refusing to solve real customer needs. And somebody else is going to come out and build that better bank, and you're going to become the less bank.

Jim Marous (33:31):

Very quickly, by the way, yeah. I mean, we see some come up from the south side of America with Nubank, and believe me, they know how to integrate social media with product development and with deployment. And I think you're right, I think if we keep on doing banking the way we learned to do it, we're not going to be successful.

Jim Marous (33:54):

The reality is, if you spend all your time on trying to make it so you can be more efficient, more effective in the back office, yes, you'll save money, it'll get you through the next quarterly review, but you're not going to survive in the consumer's mindset because there's going to be something better out there as far as, man, you just hit a button that I want this to be my bank because they're looking at this.

Jim Marous (34:15):

I did a video recently around what my Oura Ring does that my retail bank does it. And what it does, it gives me the score every morning on where I am fitness-wise and sleep-wise for sure. But what they do more is they then give you recommendations based on your specific example, what you did over the last 24 hours, as to what you should do the next 24 hours.

Jim Marous (34:36):

I'm getting really used to that. They're also bringing in outside data around blood work and everything to say, we're going to even get more specific as to what you should do today. Consumers are going to go, “Amazon's doing that, Alexa's doing that, Bank of America through Erica's doing that, my Oura Ring's doing that, why can't my financial institution?” Well, it's here and it's on the way.

Jim Marous (35:00):

So, finally, if you're a bank marketer, let's say at a $7 to $10 billion institution, so you're not flushing cash, but you are flushing opportunity. Let's say you have good leadership, what should financial marketers that have been, in some cases, never were marketing schooled, but they have been the marketing department head of marketing for quite a while – what do they have to do in the next 6 to 12 months to actually at least start to catch up?

Tiffani Montez (35:32):

I think it's really focusing on how you think about your products and services. So, as an example, and I sort of briefly hit on this when I touched on one of the questions that you asked me earlier, most marketers (and I'll just say most financial institutions) think about banking under the context of product, and not under the context of experience.

Tiffani Montez (35:54):

And when you start thinking about under the context of experience, products are commodities, experiences are your differentiators. And so, if you start redefining what the experience looks like, and you're moving from product to customer-centric, it means that you have to organize around life stage.

Tiffani Montez (36:15):

And when I say life stage, I don't mean life stage like organizing your financial products around a life stage like home ownership. I mean, building experiences that connect a consumer through, and drive engagement from all the different phases of a life stage.

Tiffani Montez (36:31):

So, as an example, home ownership is a great life stage where if you think about the banking relationship today, home ownership or home mortgages are highly transactional. And I wouldn't even call them transactional because most people have their mortgage set up on auto pay, so there's no transaction really.

Tiffani Montez (36:52):

But if you think about home ownership under the context of a life stage, how do you help someone find a home? How do you help them buy a home? How do you help them learn how to manage that home as an asset? How do you help them learn how to build equity in their home? And then how do you help them know what to do next? And what are all the touch points that you can set up with a consumer to actually drive engagement and add value to them?

Tiffani Montez (37:17):

So, again, I think the big thing that I would say to banks is stop acting like a commodity and start acting like a true financial partner. And naturally, if you act like a true financial partner, you're going to get all the marketing material that you need to be able to solve a customer need and to be able to articulate what it is that you do, and the value that you add to a consumer.

Jim Marous (37:40):

Tiffani, that is so interesting because as you look at AI and what AI can bring to the table as far as an assist, the human working beside the AI tool can work so well in that environment where even 12 months ago, you'd be starting from scratch.

Jim Marous (37:57):

Right now, I just look at the commercial client officer environment and go, if you give them just the basic data that you have, through AI, you can build solutions that that client officer can go out and provide their clients or their prospects something that wasn't available from a mindset perspective 12 months ago.

Jim Marous (38:19):

If you think of things in that way, one other thing that comes out of that, you're getting that engagement, that consistency, the brand awareness, the narrow focus. You get all the things you need to do to be recognized in the areas you want to be recognized for.

Jim Marous (38:36):

So, again, I don't have to be the bank that's always referred all the time, but I sure as heck don't want to not be the bank that's recognized in a category that I want to own, even if it's meaning I'm going to be completely focused on my community, X, Y, Z, or Citi. That's part of that.

Jim Marous (38:56):

And again, with what you just said, the beauty of all this, we have the tools available today to do that, but a lot of it means we have to open the doors to the insights that are there and do something with it. I think you said it halfway through the podcast as well, those organizations that continue to think the way they've thought, continue to rest on their laurels because they've not had a bad year.

Jim Marous (39:21):

One thing you said, the other side of that is what you said earlier too, we're on the cusp (and I've heard this now five times in the last four weeks) of what I would consider to be major consolidation in the industry from an organizational standpoint.

Jim Marous (39:38):

I'm not the chicken little guy, I'm not the sky is falling kind of guy, I've never said that in any context over the last 50 years I've been in banking. I never believed it more than I do today that AI is going to differentiate the winners from the losers, the acquired from the being acquired, or being acquired from the acquirers, and that you're going to be defined by how well you can move quickly and have resilience.

Jim Marous (40:02):

But the most important part is how you're going to be able to interact both with your employees and your consumers in a way that's meaningful and gives them the tools to be the best customer reps in the world.

[Music Playing]

Jim Marous (40:16):

Tiffani, thank you so much for being on the show, I really appreciate the discussion. For those who are interested, we're going to put a link to the index that we were talking about today on EMARKETER that you can access at least the top line findings.

Jim Marous (40:30):

I think it's extraordinarily interesting, it's great that you're doing this because we've been talking about something like this for a while, but not long enough because it's now a big differentiator. I'm seeing it on the social media side and everything else, and it'll be interesting to see we'll find more and more ways that people can find angles into it because we're still learning on that as well, so thank you again, Tiffani.

Tiffani Montez (40:52):

Absolutely. Thank you so much. I appreciate it, Jim. Always good to see you.

Jim Marous (40:55):

Thanks for listening to Banking Transformed, the winner of three international awards for podcast excellence. If you enjoy what we're doing, we would really enjoy a positive review. Also, check out my recent articles on The Financial Brand, the research we're doing for the Digital Banking Report.

Jim Marous (41:13):

This has been a production of Evergreen Podcasts. A special thank you to our Senior Producer, Leah Haslage; audio engineer, Chris Fafalios, and video producer, Will Pritts.