On the face of it, this new case study for Direct Line could seem run-of-the-mill. Direct Line very sensibly wanted us to gather user requirements and ideas before they embarked on a redesign of their ‘On the Road’ iPhone app.

But what’s important is how we did it.

I need to buy luggage and I’m in a hurry. I don’t have a great deal of time to do research and I’m not familiar with the common brands. What do I do?

Thanks to everyone who attended our recent breakfast briefing at the Whitechapel Gallery in Whitechapel high street, London.  Speaking at the event was Brett King, author of Bank 2.0. 

We’ve been recognised at this year’s NMA Effectiveness Awards in the Business-to-Business Category, banking and finance, with a ‘Highly Commended’ for our HSBC Mortgage Sales Optimisation project.

We’re hosting a very special breakfast briefing in London on Thursday 15th July where Brett King, author of best selling business book ‘BANK 2.0’, will present his inspiring thoughts on how the world of banking and financial services is changing forever.

We think Brett has some interesting and challenging ideas for anyone who is working within a multi-channel financial services business. The themes that Brett will speak about go wider than just banking, and are relevant for anyone involved in selling or managing financial services in today’s marketplace.

We observed in our Online Shopping Survey into credit cards a gradual commoditisation (or homogenisation) of credit cards and their marketing. A recent review of the current credit card marketplace confirmed there’s still very little differentiation between providers. They haven’t moved on very far from our last OSS study in this sector a couple of years ago.

Here’s my top 5 differentiating servicing functions and attributes that credit card providers should be investing heavily in to help attract and, more importantly, retain their customer base.

I’ve always tended to be of the opinion that great digital design doesn’t win awards. The sort of work which quietly satisfies customer needs isn’t the stuff that catches judges’ eyes.

But happily there’s a growing emphasis on business effectiveness in the awards world. As a result, we are delighted to announce that one of our projects for HSBC has just won a Global Business Effectiveness award and has been shortlisted in the New Media Age Effectiveness Awards 2010.

We hit on an interesting approach while looking for insight to help us design a better motor insurance shopping journey.

One of the speakers at Econsultancy’s ‘Future of Digital Marketing’ conference was the charismatic Christophe Langlois. He has a site called Visible Banking which tracks the banking industry’s attempts to use social media to create dialogue with the rest of society.

The problem: The Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) online marketplace is a battlefield where neither the consumer nor provider is winning.