Business

Saturday November 28, 2009

EON Bank uses online marketing to boost customer base

By DALJIT DHESI


EON Bank Bhd will use online marketing, beginning with the sponsorship of the movie, The Storm Warriors, as a new initiative to boost its customer base, including credit card customers.

Offering various merchandise and free tickets online will give the bank the necessary database to market its products going forward, according to the bank’s head of Internet banking and e-channels, Prem Kumar.

“Being a sponsor of a hit movie will allow us to create a movie portal from the compilation of the database and to feature products, including credit cards, as well as other upcoming hit movies which the bank will sponsor in the near future,” he said in an interview with StarBizWeek.

Prem said marketing online would also help the bank save costs and capture a wider captive audience, noting that there was an estimated 2 million Malaysians on Facebook with the figure set to increase.

The Storm Warriors, a sequel to the Storm Riders movie, will premiere at the Golden Screen Cinema (GSC) in Mid Valley Megamall on Dec 9.

Apart from online users, holders of the bank’s co-branded credit cards like the GSC-EON Bank Visa credit card and EON’s generic cards can also participate in various online contests for free tickets and other merchandise.

Cardholders will also be entitled for a 10% discount on tickets purchased at any GSC cinemas in the country.

GSC-EON cardholders who spend a minimum of RM150 on purchases are entitled to redeem two free tickets at selected GSC cinemas.

Generic cardholders who spend the same amount can redeem a single ticket at these selected outlets.

EON Bank, in collaboration with GSC, will be giving away more than 2,000 free tickets for the movie to its cardholders.

The bank’s head of cards and unsecured lending, Aaron Tan, said since the beginning of the various contests on Nov 9, the number of participating online “unique” visitors has increased to more than 10,000 in under a week.

The contests will close by year-end.

For credit cards, EON Bank is targeting 30,000 GSC EON cardholders by year-end from 20,000 currently.

At present it has about 520,000 cardholders.

Moving forward, online marketing will be part of the bank’s strategy to enhance the penetration of its cards segment, according to Tan.

Despite the imposition of service tax of RM50 for each credit card effective Jan 1, he noted that the response to GSC EON cards had been overwhelming, judging from the number of new applications.

“As at end of last month, we issued more than 20,000 cards and applications are still coming in,” Tan said.

Customers can participate for the movie’s free tickets and merchandise as well as other prizes via three contests – Answer & Win, Blog & Win and Upload & Win.

For the first contest, participants are required to answer three questions to stand a chance of winning, among others, a Samsung Explorer phone worth RM499 or a limited edition eight-piece mini sword replica set of The Storm Warriors.

The Blog & Win contest, utilising the popular Nuffnang channel, will award the top five bloggers with the highest number of clicks on the The Storm Warriors banner with two invitations to meet the movie’s stars, Aaron Kwok and Ekin Cheng, who will be in Malaysia, two passes to the movie premiere and The Storm Warriors merchandise, among others.

Among the top five bloggers, the most exciting blog will walk away with Samsung Jet handphone worth RM1,888.

Entrants for the Upload & Win contest will be required to make a short video impersonating key characters from The Storm Warriors and winners will be decided by the highest number of votes for their videos.

The grand prize for the public video contest will be the “Ultimate Movie Experience”, where the winning entrant and a guest will enjoy red carpet treatment with Gold Class invitations to the movie premier, a chance to mingle with local celebrities, a Samsung Jet phone worth RM1,888 for the winner plus exclusive movie merchandise.

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