Marketing to young people

This article from Financial Services Technology magazine is a great distillation of some interesting research from Forrester.

However, the conclusions shouldn't come as too much of a surprise.

Apparently young people are techno-savvy and expect to be able to manage their finances conveniently through the channel of their choice. They are also more interested in product benefits than features and buy fewer financial services products than older people. Really? Whodathunkit?

More interestingly, the research suggests that only around half of young people choose the same bank as their parents. Inheritance is a major cause of outflows for private banks so we can't be surprised that the same effectively holds true in the retail banking sector - yet it's interesting to note that, as well growing up with technology, young people are now also growing up with switching services and advertising campaigns designed to discourage loyalty.

Historically, financial services customers have had to be made pretty annoyed - and given a fairly big carrot - before they'll go through the bother of changing providers. Is this the same for young people? It seems we marketers aren't tracking that yet - but I'd suggest it's time we start. Otherwise, can you be sure you'll recoup the costs of that expensive student account incentive?