Profiting From Porn
Hans Eysink Smeets thinks banks have a lot to learn from the porn industry.
Before working in a bank, The Teller was briefly involved in porn – one reason why The Teller remains anonymous. And hopefully, the fact that what the Teller was “known for” in those days was a particularly depraved “niche” product will keep our employer from uncovering any remaining “films.”
Still, the experience did give The Teller some real, on-the-ground perspective on the matter.
Smeets, chairman and managing partner for Eysink Smeets Business Consultants, a retail strategy consulting firm, recently released a book: “Porn for Bankers.”
Smeets says the book “illustrates” how the porn industry changed with the times and with the desires of its audience. This is the story played out in Paul Thomas Anderson’s movie “Boogie Nights,” in which Burt Reynolds plays a porn director committed to plying his craft on film even as every Tom, Dick and Harry is cashing in by making pornos quickly and cheaply with handheld video cameras.
So, bankers are conservative old fuddy-duddies, eh? Who’d-a-thunk it?
Still, The Teller is acquainted with far too many bankers we simply do not want to envision in anything remotely related to porn. Of course, there are exceptions. But we won’t get into that.
The thing is, the makers of porn movies had to adapt technologically in order to compete with porn videos and, later, internet porn. In “Boogie Nights,” Reynolds’ character has a hard time making that change and is appalled by the extreme sex acts the new pornographers are eager to depict.
It’s easy to see that banks haven’t been quite so stubborn. In fact, they’ve been pretty good at adopting new technology. Technology allows the Teller to visit a bank branch about as often as we visit a video store: Never.
As for fees, Smeets says banks should follow the porn model and allow consumers to figure out that it’s easy to avoid paying for the stuff that, while maybe not exactly what you were looking for, will result in a satisfied customer nonetheless.
We would, however, disapprove if our bank were to sink to the depths of depravity and start doing the rough stuff: forgiving delinquent mortgage debt. That’s just dirty.
