The New FNB.co.za

Today, we're really proud to announce the next step in our digital journey at FNB - the launch of the brand spanking new website.

The website relaunch has been a project of mammoth proportions, with amazing collaboration between teams from all over the bank. As I blog this, the guys from the Online team are still baby-sitting the launch - big kudos on the effort.

The old site


The new site

From the very beginning, we started out with a couple of lofty strategic ideals centered around the customer experience.

It had to be:

* An Experience (a bank website just isn't the must-visit destination other sites can claim to be - our visitors are purpose driven and we have to work hard to provide an environment that promotes exploration and feels like an experience).

* Friendly (it's something I've been talking about for ages, the big lesson that Web 2.0 has taught us is to talk WITH people, not talk AT them - something I think we've really achieved)

* Intuitive (banking products can be complicated - we had to find a way to logically group them according to a flow that customers would relate to - the I Want to BANK approach is that)


* A bit 2.0ey (you can't be obsessed with the open-everything Web 2.0 approach, remember we're a financial institution and trust is paramount - but there are some 2.0 lessons that you can see coming through: the personalisation mentioned below, the rounded edges, soft design, AJAX elements on the Wizards and navigation structure)

* Personal (there's much more to come in this space, but you can see elements of personalisation in the My Menu option - it's amazing what just pulling your name into search results does for the experience as a whole)


More visual more often

When I was doing research in the beginning stages of the product, it blew me away how few bank websites (even international examples) bothered to show a picture of the product. A platinum credit card is a sexy product, it's a status symbol and something you use almost daily. Yet no pictures?

A strong focus in the project was to find a way of visualising products and their associated features and benefits. This follows a big international trend towards a more retail style of financial services sites. Amazon has set a benchmark, and there's no shame in trying to match it.

If you look at a product page (Platinum Credit Card is my personal favourite) you can see how the simple use of images to illustrate benefits really turns this into a sexy experience...



It's all about conversions.

And, at the end of the day, what is a website around for? It's your digital front door, your virtual sales consultant... If people can't get your products or get in touch with you, you're failing from the start. The lead form on page (Click CALL ME BACK on any of the content pages) and the new Product Shop are moves in the right direction.

Make it easy for customers. Full stop.


The new site was a massive team effort - thank you and congratulations to everyone involved. We hope you, the public, see where this dream is going and enjoy the new experience. This is just the first step... Finance on the web. Now with added friendliness.

Sony Pictures South Africa Twitter FAIL... Or Learning?

Sony Pictures SA just followed me. I'm always interested in big brand take up of social media, so gleefully clicked through to investigate (and most likely follow back).

Shock. Horror.



In case you're too lazy to click on the image to enlarge. Let me make this patently clear. Sony South Africa's last set of communication to their 350+ followers looks like this:

TO BUY YOUR OWN COPY OF SEVEN POUNDS GO TO http://www.kalahari.net/dvd...11 minutes ago from web

Have you bought yourself a copy of 7 Pound DVD?? Hurry and get one while stocks last!about 17 hours ago from web

HURRY and get yourself a Seven Pound DVD today!!!!4:35 PM Jul 13th from web

Get your copy of Seven Pounds DVD and Blu Ray TODAY!!!10:31 AM Jul 13th from web

Four more days until the release of Seven Pounds on Blu Ray and DVD!9:20 AM Jul 9th from web

Click on the link to view the trailer of Seven Pounds!! www.sonypictures.com/homevi...1:09 PM Jul 8th from web

Seven Pounds DVD releasing 13 July 2009!!!11:16 AM Jul 7th from web

Seven Pounds coming soon on DVD and Blu-Ray!10:21 PM Jul 6th from web

is setting up their profile to showcase brand new DVD and Blu-Ray titles! Coming Soon!9:51 PM Jul 6th from web

REACTION NUMBER 1 - RANT
We all know Google never forgets. Don't we? Welcome to what I like to call instant social media death. This is a brand self destructing, spamming 350 people with inane, valueless communication.

They have missed every tricky in the book. This isn't conversation. This isn't engagement. This is a bad "call centre" style sales pitch. Every day. Twice a day.

I'd have to ask:

1. Is this actually Sony or a brand hijack by a supplier?
2. What would Sony International say?
3. Is a digital agency behind this? If so, shame on you.
4. Who is going to call this out in big media so we can keep social media clean?

REACTION NUMBER 2 - PENSIVE

If this is someone at Sony SA trying their hand at Social Media - perhaps we shouldn't be so quick to jump down their throats. Social media is a whole new world, a world full of talkers and very little do'ers. A world of much buzz and little strategy.

If we think there is a social media "expert" sitting on every corner and inside every company to help brands navigate inside such a complex and fickle environment - we're sorely mistaken.

Perhaps brands just need some help and guidance. Not a whole bunch of geeks mouthing off about how much they suck.

So. I ask you dear audience...

What should Sony do?

SA's Top 20 Tweeters = Full of Crap

The spam and uninteresting lounge salesman have hit South African Twitter. And it makes me sad.

Was trawling through our top 100 Tweeters through Twellow the other day. Don't really know how accurate this is, but following a couple of interesting people in the Top 20 led to the following automated replies.

Thanks for following me. I look forward to our interactions. Have a look at my web site at http://www.bigprofitinc.com.

Thanks for the follow! Generate 1000's Of Views On Youtube Using These Strategies. http://bit.ly/OUmc0

Thanks for the follow!New forex product increases profit by over 300% in 91 days! http://bit.ly/1ZWvOb

Thanks for the following. Let me help you to increase traffic to your online business dramatically? Click here: http://budurl.com/TwitterS2L

I'm not even linking those things out of principle. It's sad. Unfollow. Social Media is killing the web.

Nokia E75's Teach the Technophobe: CHALLENGE No. 1

Teach the Technophobe: 8 brave Nokia fans have signed up to ‘Teach the Technophobe’ to help some close friends and family join the messaging generation using the E75. Their technophobes will negotiate various hurdles and challenges, the one who finishes this training to the best of their ability will win their coach the opportunity to trial 5 E75’s for their community.

THE TECHNOPHOBE: Dr Chantal Lourenco - esteemed medical practitioner, budding health economist, wife to geek. While fairly competent with most forms of technology, has been known to glaze over when faced with matching the audio, video and device inputs on the home theatre system. She's a middle of the road user. Form usually beats function and geek cred is worth squat. A perfect technophobe.

CHALLENGE No. 1 - Set up an email account on the new Nokia E75 and send a test mail.

Completed! I must say, I personally have mixed feelings about the E75, but it's proving an instant hit with Chantal. The email functionality is vastly improved, and 1 click setup for any email account is a tantalising proposition.

My technophobe set up her Gmail account and was receiving and sending mail in under 5 minutes. Just a username and password. POP, IMAP and other protocols (which would have illicted a dirty look rather than a quizzical attempt to reconfigure) are completely hidden from the user.

With the E75's slide out keyboard and landscape tilt, reading and responding to email is a breeze. It even allows you to group by subject - as close as you'll get to Gmail's genius of grouping conversations together. You do tend to realise when taking part in a competition like this though... To the ordinary wife in the street, grouping by conversations is not really important in the grander scheme of things.

Myself on the other hand. Epic fail. My first attempt to set up corporate Outlook failed. I think more because of security certificates on my side (any help to get around this?). My first attempt to setup Gmail failed. The app crashed, but evidently completed most of the setup anyway because mails began streaming in. My second attempt to setup corporate Outlook will be today.

Wife 1 | Geek 0 | Nokia E75 0.5

Email is invasive, let's get that out the way. But there is a peculiar quality to having your life stream onto your phone. I've avoided it up till now - but a device like the E75 might just change my mind. Not to say I didn't try email on my current E71, but the interface you're provided with to read the mails is so completely inferior to the Gmail for Mobile app, that it never took off.

WOMWorld should have received our test mail. The next challenge awaits. Bring it.

Nokia E75 "Teach the Technophobe" - The Kit

Sizzly it was. Here's the blogger kit for the Nokia E75 review / challenge. Interestingly, these pics are taken with my Technophobes' Nokia N73. Not bad for an old phone eh?


Above you'll see the metal case, hiding layers of heavy gram production rich cardboard. The first Nokia E75 comes in here. The other in the standard Nokia packaging.


So, the two brand spanky new phones are on charge. Here's my first question. I'll pop it through to WOMWorld as well. Do you really have to charge these modern phones for 18 hours? I've asked this before and got a string of different answers. Kinda like the total number of Internet users in South Africa... People can guess, but no-one really knows.

Here's the nice leaderboard chart. Going straight up in the bar next to the everyday drinking whiskey.


Looks like there'll be 4 challenges. I've chosen my wife as a technophobe. Those of you who've met her can attest to her complete and utter disinterest in tech. And sometimes frustrating ability to lose the "apple" key. I wouldn't say she's a "phobe". But I'll do a quick geek test for clarity.

The Nokia E75 "Teach the Technophobe" International Blogger Challenge

Phew. It's a mouthful - but a nifty project from WOMWorld Nokia. I've done some reviewing of their units before, the E71 actually, my incumbent.

Just received the blogger kit, and it's might impressive. Perhaps a little OTT (over the top), but who wouldn't want to receive a big metal case filled with cardboard Russian-doll style cutouts unveiling a pretty sexy red Nokia E75.

I've always been a sucker for sizzle.

Here's a quick description of the challenge from the site. You'll find information aggregated here if you're keen to follow.


8 brave Nokia fans have each signed up to ‘Teach the Technophobe’ how to get the most out of the new Nokia email service using the E75. Along this journey their technophobes will negotiate various hurdles and challenges. The technophobe who finishes this intense training first will win their coach the opportunity to trial 5 E75's for their community.

Online Ad Formats to avoid...

I've been doing a lot of investigation into Google Adwords lately. FNB has made some strong moves in this space. But it's not just search I'm interested in. Google has successfully disintermediated and bought out a pretty sizeable portion of the online ad industry. Especially with its acquisition of DoubleClick. You can apply almost every form of advertising through AdWords now. From banner to gadget, from text to skyscraper.

So, with this veritable honeypot of advertising available. You'd better do your research. Here are 10 online ad formats to avoid. Don't be a sucker for the money. Users come first. Always.

• Banner ads below headers
  
• Ads that look like content
  
• Dancing ads
  
• Auto-expanding half-page ads
  
• Banners next to logos
  
• Billboards in the top right corner
  
• Google text links interrupting content
  
• Ads with hidden close buttons
  
• Interstitials
  
• Page Take-overs

Taken from the Silicon Alley Insider.

Have PS3. Will be blown away.

Took the plunge to 1080P full HD gaming the other day. I'd been holding off. The PS2 was cool, but I got a bit bored after a year or so. How was the PS3 to fair? Blu-Ray. HD gaming. Wireless controllers. Hmmm.

I'll blog a bit about this as I explore the platform more. But let's say this from the outset. I've played one game: BioShock.

I was BLOWN away.

The experience, quality of graphics and 5.1 Surround is unreal. Whatever doubts I may have had where wiped out in about 10 seconds.

Click on the image below. This is IN GAME footage of the first 3 minutes of BioShock. You suffer a plane crash, land in an ocean amoungst wreckage and are forced to swim for it. It drips realism. Never before have I been entranced by water.


Yowsers. Now for Tiger Woods. The only real drinking man's PlayStation game.

SEO Analyst - Job available @ FNB Johannesburg...

Riggggghhht. Now where are all those smarty-pants SEO's who want to hop on board for a real challenge? You'll be exposed to the sheer delight of having me as one of your first clients. I'm a nice guy. Really.

Pass it on - it's an amazing opportunity to come join a really solid and innovative digital team. If you're interested, pop me a mail on ahadfield at fnb dot co dot za - and I'll put in touch with the right people.

Overview of Role

The SEO Analyst is a position designed to support the efforts of the search engine optimisation team. This person is responsible for assisting with the production, implementation, and development of our search engine optimisation services. We're looking for a motivated, creative, and analytic thinker to join FNB Online, in Fairland, Randburg. As a Search Engine Optimisation Analyst, the person’s primary goal will be to increase natural search engine traffic from key search engines for our FNB Internal Stakeholders. The person will also assist with the implementation of a SEM (Search Engine Marketing) and Web Analytics strategy.

Key Responsibilities:

* Audit content published for search engine optimization compliance
* Create detailed search engine optimization recommendations for assigned sites
* Track and report search engine referrals, keyword rankings and other SEO/SEM traffic metrics for assigned sites to stakeholders
* Implement strategies for attaining high rankings for relevant, high-volume search terms
* Be an expert in your space by staying on top of current SEO/SEM news, search engine feature changes, and algorithm shifts.
* Research, create and assist with a long-term SEO/SEM strategy for the channel that complies with best practice standards and will drive sustainable traffic.
* On-page optimisation, including detailed site assessment and comprehensive recommendations.
* Off-page optimisation, including development and acquisition.
* Website structure, page structure and internal linking structure.
* Advice on implementation and page code.
* Page copy and keyword optimisation.
* Monitoring and reporting.
* Keyword research.
* Competitor and back-link analysis.
* Work autonomously to identify areas of opportunity and improvement.
* Follow company policies and procedures.
* Complete any ad hoc report, or duty as required by the business needs.
* Demonstrate an active interest in advancing the success of our clients.

South Africa getting into Porn?

Ah, the hallowed day has arrived.

My wife received this spam SMS the other day: Welcome to mynudespace.co.za be part of an adult community find partners for hot sexual encounters Live out your sexual fantasies http://www.mynudespace.co.za

Low and behold...



A truly South African porn site. And who said we didn't have Internet penetration in this country. Uh. Erm.

I left immediately. Obviously.