• by June 24, 2005

Yahoo! continued its ongoing Summit Series of events for marketers and agencies yesterday with a financial-themed event dubbed, "Selling Money." It featured a cast of smart folks that included a futurist, an analyst, a researcher, two Ivy League university professors, and the wry funnyman Ben Stein. (We must confess, we didn't stick around to hear him but we trust that he was a gas, as well as incredibly self-deprecating). Can anyone out there confirm this?

The business at hand during "Selling Money"? Well, money, of course. But not merely money. The afternoon's events gave attendees a better sense of who's conducting their financial business online  that is everything from balancing and monitoring accounts, using financial planning tools, and applying for loans and credit cards, to finding investment information, researching money management, and debt reduction strategies.

At the event, Yahoo! shared the results of a study on consumers' use of the online channel for all kinds of financial matters. The online giant partnered with Forrester Research and OgilvyOne Worldwide on the research that found, among other things, more than one out of three consumers who are single say they prefer to apply for credit cards online, rather than by direct mail or in person. In addition, more than one in four of the folks surveyed indicated they would rather apply for mortgages online. (See today's story in the OnlineMediaDaily by Wendy Davis for more on this).

In general, Forrester's Catherine Graeber and Michele Madansky, vice president, corporate and sales research at Yahoo!, emphasized that younger people, 18- to 34-year-olds, are very much in the online habit when it comes to financial matters. They are already banking online, monitoring their balances several times a day, and are prime candidates for other financial products and services. Young people love the sense of control they get from managing, monitoring, and researching money matters online. They feel empowered. They love control. Yeah!

Graeber and Madansky emphasized this point because typically, marketers of financial services have placed their focus on Baby Boomers, retirees, and high net worth individuals. And while these folks are online and yes, let's face it, they have money, marketers are missing a ripe opportunity by not strategizing now on how they're going to cultivate savvy and empowered young people who've grown up online and will, one day, have accumulated wealth and inherit the Earth. Interestingly, the research also indicated that single folks, yes, that's this here Minute, are also, in many ways, under-marketed to online. More of us are looking for financing to buy our first homes and plan our financial futures.

Another interesting highlight, futurist Andrew Zolli, indicated that marketers better be thinking about the influx of new Americans (immigrants) who are very definitely influenced by advertising in their quest to acculturate. Financial services will need to be tailored to a multicultural society full of young people who have different attitudes about money. Zolli also told us some things we already knew, like how we now have four-generation families, and how adult children are now spending more years taking care of their parents than their parents spent taking care of them. It's profound.

Two words: Estate planning.