Monzo in the media

I remember some news articles making the Facebook comparison as they tried to explain fintech to their readers, but I don’t remember Monzo ever leaning into the comparison themselves, much less using it in any of their marketing.

Indeed, Monzo’s biggest advertising campaigns have always positioned Monzo as being very much thing. It wasn’t “You make Monzo the Facebook of banking”.

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I don’t think that’s quite right. Monzo was a very different beast to Simple and took some very different choices - unless you just think that a digital app-first bank is a copy (although Simple had web access and telephone banking, I think).

As @simonb points out, the point of contention with Simple was the “Safe to Spend” figure. This is probably the Tweet they found it from:

It’s a super early version of the app. This is what eventually turned into Summary Left to Spend figure, which in and of itself is a very different take on the Simple approach.

Incidentally, whilst digging out that tweet, I did find one relevant to my earlier question:

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Yep and worth noting that nobody outside the company and Eileen / Passion Capital had access at that point.

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Just on this, I think it’s probably a bit simplistic (pun intended) to say that Simple failed. As I understand it, they were profitable, but were just acquired v early in their lifecycle by BBVA, who then sold off their US business. We don’t quite know if BBVA wanted to hold onto the Simple IP (and therefore closed it) or if the acquiring bank didn’t understand or fancy it, but I don’t think it ‘failed’ in the traditional sense. But yes, either way, it’s not with us any more. (Maybe @while-loop knows more?)

Except it wasn’t, as Simple stated in their cease and desist the issue was the use of their trademark in a product that is virtually identical to theirs. An allegation Monzo never refuted nor challenged. They complied with it.

I’m not a (US) lawyer, but I think that a) a reference to the category (banking) being identical, b) relying on one comment from an online article (“In the US, Simple Bank is very much like this”) which you’ll note doesn’t mean the same thing, and c) it’s an assertion from a bigger firm that has the money to lawyer up.

All of that means that Simple’s lawyers putting it in a letter doesn’t make it true, it just means that they sabre rattled Mondo enough to change the phrasing. I would have done the same: it avoided a costly legal fight they didn’t have the time, money or appetite to fight.

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So ultimately the answer to my question is that Monzo has never advertised or compared themselves as the X of banking which was my recollection!

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I think Simple was successful (as an ex-Simple user myself), but I think you may be in the right direction of it’s shutdown being because of business acquisitions/closures. Just me speculating from the outside!

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You’re putting words in my post Dan! And yours! That’s not the question you asked, and that’s not what I claimed.

The discourse that followed my comment proves my initial statement true. If folks don’t like the truth of that narrative and want to now twist what’s been said to suit their ideal, well that’s up to them, but I’m disinclined to engage with it.

The facts are, I said Monzo have been described with the same comparisons and buzzwords. The discourse that followed has proved that. Let’s not now move the goalposts by asking me to prove a claim I never made.

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This isn’t true though, which is what people are pointing out.

Articles calling someone the Deliveroo for dog delivery is nothing new, they do that for everything because it gets a good headline and it’s easy to digest and understand. But Monzo themselves didn’t do it.

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I’m not saying they did! But The Guardian certainly did!

If you go back and read the post that triggered this train of discourse you’ll see it was a journalist making that statement for that Company, not the company themselves.

That executives didn’t say it in interviews and tweets? Because that’s not the point folks have been trying to make. An executive saying something on a stage != monzo advertising themselves.

So basically Monzo didn’t do anything like this but the media did, case closed. :eyes: :man_judge::judge:

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Yup. Same as the company you criticised for the same thing. Can we move on now?

Wait did Monzo put ads out quoting comparisons made by third parties?
Aka an insta ad saying “Monzo, like the facebook of banking” for example?

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No, the Guardian did, just like The Evening Standard have done here.

Can we stop moving the goal posts to make it appear as if I’ve typed things I’ve not please? Monzo have shared quotes about them on socials too if that’s what you’re criticising now.

This :clap::clap:

I am just asking if monzo did paid ad’s quoting the comparisons like said bank above, it was so long ago and I generally dont get ads often and dont use insta so I am unaware if they did.
3rd parties making comparisons like guardian etc do the usual papers do to try and entice clicks.

Yes, but you’d need to be more specific. I don’t know if they’ve done it with stuff the media have said, but they’ve paid customers to use their comments in social posts. Been a while since I’ve used Facebook or anything like it, so I’m not the best to ask if they do things like sponsored posts. I’d assume they do, most businesses do, it’s an effective way to advertise, so it would be stupid not to.

So this was Dave’s line, which was on a ad that the bank had chosen to publish, which is valid criticism.
Given we are not aware of Monzo doing a paid ad quoting the comparison with facebook etc the guardian etc wrote then I am not sure what the problem is?

I understand why the company did that ad, to attract people attracted to monzo by using a 3rd parties comparison, it happens a lot on all ad’s to a degree. It is perfectly valid to state that its a poor ad because they chose to state that rather than trying to stand on their own feet, chase for example, have not done this as far as I am aware but have done lots of ad’s.

That’s a really nit picky take though, and is a stark contrast from the general comment. It wasn’t that specific at all, and still isn’t, that’s just how you’ve chosen to read into it, and certainly isn’t what I have.

It goes back to the moving the goalposts. Every time I defend the move compare it to Monzo, someone takes the initial comments and makes it ever so more specific so that my rebuttal is no longer relevant, which is what you’ve done here. If their critique was that oddly specific, they should have just said so, and there would have been nothing to compare it to.

Even if this is what they meant, it doesn’t alter the validity of my input, which your reply has no relevance to, it’s gone that far beyond the scope of my comment.

How far folks are willing to go to stretch things to suit their narrative is really astounding at times!