• November 10, 2010

Arkadi Kuhlmann is on a mission to bring saving back in style.

As CEO of ING Direct, he has done that by making "saving" enticing: his stores -- and he is outspoken on that point: they aren't banks, they are stores -- have cafes, lounges. What does that have to do with banking? "Nothing," he said. The bottom line: great customer experience is everything. "At the end of the day it's not what we do at ING Direct, it's what we stand for."

Kuhlmann, speaking at the Conference Board in New York, gave a wide-ranging speech about how marketing fails through complexity and an institutional fetish for arcane.