At the time, buying advertising at the top of the local newspaper's front page seemed like a good idea, Daniel Robinson, community president for Simmons Bank in Jonesboro, told an audience of marketers Tuesday at the Arkansas Bankers Association Marketing Conference in Little Rock.
A competing bank was buying advertising in the same newspaper, touting bankers it had hired away from Simmons, Robinson said.
"What we didn't think about was what some of the articles beneath the ad might say," Robinson said. "Someone's been charged with manslaughter and there's a picture of me. Or someone is going to prison today and there's my picture. So that probably wasn't the best [marketing] decision we ever made."
Robinson was a member of a panel of bank executives addressing the conference.
The panel also included Scott Hancock, Centennial Bank's division president in Northwest Arkansas; Craig Mobley, executive vice president with First Financial Bank in El Dorado; and Jim Cargill, chief executive officer for Arvest Bank in Central Arkansas.
In contrast, one of the better marketing campaigns Arvest conducted began by wanting to make its debit cards more appealing to its customers, Cargill said.
"One of the things our customers said to us was to give them designs that were locally oriented," Cargill said. "We have beautiful things in the state of Arkansas."
So Arvest's marketing team met with the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism and created a series of eight debit cards with Arkansas scenes, Cargill said.
One bank marketer asked how the federal Community Reinvestment Act affects marketing budgets.
Since the late 1970s, regulators have required banks to help meet community needs, including low-income neighborhoods, as directed by the federal Community Reinvestment Act.
"We actually have a pool of money for [Community Reinvestment Act] only," Robinson said. "It goes through a process, submitting it to the organization and then to our [Community Reinvestment Act] officer. She reviews it and says it qualifies and how much should we give them. So we allocate a certain amount of money for every market."
The funds are needed, Hancock said.
"There are a lot of people out there that need it," Hancock said. "We have put together a group to think of organizations that we can partner with and build a relationship with. And not only contribute the dollar but also the time."
Mobley encouraged the marketers not to give up on presenting ideas to bank executives. When an idea is presented to a bank's executives, they often want to know how it will benefit the bank, Mobley said.
"Will this increase [return on equity] or will it increase shareholder value?" Mobley said. "So be prepared to present your idea and go a step further by showing how to implement your idea. Be prepared to take your idea from start to finish. But don't get frustrated. Keep presenting your idea to executive management."
Jeff Slutsky of Kansas City, a motivational speaker, told the banking marketers that it is important to talk less and listen more when presenting an idea.
"If we can get the other person to talk more, we can learn so much," Slutsky said. "And not only that, they'll think we're wonderful conversationalists."
Business on 11/09/2016