Banking and Justin Bieber

Last weekend I watched Never Say Never, the Justin Bieber movie, with my 13-year-old daughter.  Like most young girls with a heartbeat, she loves Justin Beiber and can't understand why I don't love him, too.  She had already seen the movie when it came to the theater earlier this year, but she insisted that I watch it on DVD, saying it would change my opinion of JB.

And she was right--although not necessarily in the way she thought.

First, about the movie.  It's actually a pretty good story about a young man overcoming long odds to achieve his dream of musical success.  He's charming and very talented, and the people who work with him are likeable.  And if you care about social media, there's a good angle there as well.  All in all, it's worth 2 hours of your time.

But it wasn't the story--or Justin Bieber--that inspired this post.  It was the fans.  The literally thousands of fans you see on the screen during the movie.  I would say that at least a third of the movie is footage of fans--at concerts, being interviewed, waiting in ticket lines, at appearances, even onstage at concerts.

His fans are ubiquitous in the movie.  And they are ALL FEMALES.  Every last one of them.  During the movie, the camera showed exactly ONE male fan who wasn't a dad there with his daughter. 

Now, at this point you're probably saying:  Duh!  Cute teenage boy singing sappy love songs?  Of course his fans are all girls!  And you would be right.  JB follows in a long line of teen idol singers, from Sean Cassidy to Ricky Martin to Justin Timberlake.

So here's what is so fascinating.  Despite what would appear to be a slamdunk case, Justin Bieber couldn't get a record deal.  The record companies said there wasn't a market for him on the radio; his demographic was too narrow, and therefore wouldn't appeal to the advertisers that radio station formats target.

So he took his music (and hair) directly to potential fans.  To be more specific, female fans.  And they bought it.  Bigtime.  After a few years of leveraging YouTube and personal appearances to build a following, Bieber headlined his first big tour last year, and it was a huge success, ranking third in total tickets sold, right behind Bon Jovi and the Dave Matthews Band.  

And I would bet that 98% of those almost 1 million tickets were purchased by females.  Either girls or more importantly, their Moms.

Record companies haven't seem to have caught on to the fact that the Justin Bieber phenomenon isn't an exception to the rule--it IS the rule.  Females drive consumer purchasing decisions for just about everything, and it's time retailers accepted this and start acting accordingly.  (To be fair, it's not just record companies or banks that haven't fully embraced this).

Which brings me to what JB can teach banks. 

Just because financial products are not naturally female-oriented doesn't mean that banks shouldn't find ways to make their offerings female-friendly. 

The first step is to think very, very seriously about how females view your institution--your products and services, your people, your physical spaces, your advertising.  All of it.  Learn what you can, and be prepared to be humbled--because if you ask, females will definitely tell you, and it might not be what you want to hear.  And then I would urge you to use these learnings to retrain your people and reposition your products and services for this audience.

If you want to see one big bank's effort, check out Citi's Women & Co.  I'm not crazy about this, because it focuses on women as a niche audience rather than the dominant force within Citi's retail base, but hey, it's a start.    

Never Say Never goes to great lengths to show how dedicated Justin Bieber's fans are--and how dedicated he and his team are to the fans.  Banks should try their damnedest to build the same kind of dynamic with their female customers and prospects. 

So banks and credit unions gotta get with the program and start selling to women--there simply isn't any other way.  And to think it took a 15-year-old teen idol with great hair to spell it out for us...

Comments

[richgirldiaries]

Totally agree. As a former banker, I never understood why it wasn't more obvious that consumer bank marketing should sell to women. Especially given that when I looked at the makeup of our company, it was roughly 80% female; however, when I looked at the execs of the company: SVPs and above were overwhelmingly male. I'd love to survey them to see who in the family takes care of the checkbook!