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They got negative attention. Would you trust a company with your life savings, after they didn't bother making a phone call to SIPC to ensure something as basic

They got negative attention. Would you trust a company with your life savings, after they didn't bother making a phone call to SIPC to ensure something as basic as the insurance status on your accounts? The timing was also terrible, right after their big crash earlier in the week. Every single interview addressed that. Where trust is involved, bad publicity can be worse than no publicity.

freediver 8y ago
Besides "all attention is good", simply compare the amount of media attention for the original news vs this "negative" one. It still looks like one of the most successful announcements from branding ROI perspective.
- morpheuskafka 8y ago
  Further, no trust was ever requested or place. IIRC they didn't even have a waitlist or anything. They just announced that they were going to launch a product in the future and now are redesigning it some more. Furthermore, this fits into their narrative of disruption. Their target audience will likely see this as, "stupid big banking industry trying to make it hard for them again."
  - jljljl 8y ago
    They did have a waitlist. They also had a referral system where referring your friends would bump up your place in the waitlist.
  - eropple 8y ago
    I guess I'm not their target audience, then, as a 25-34-year-old tech worker with disposable income and a desire to care about the ROI of my checking account. Because not only will I not use them for this, I closed my account entirely 'cause this is the sign of a disreputable company.
  - jnwatson 8y ago
    They did indeed have a waitlist. I was number 215000 or so to sign up, according to them.
    - solarkraft 8y ago
      > number 215000 I wouldn't be surprised to find out that's a lie.
  - rchaud 8y ago
    > Their target audience will likely see this as, "stupid big banking industry trying to make it hard for them again." That's a pretty small target audience, and those people are heavy into crypto and gold. Robinhood needs customer growth, and a nice, safe interest-bearing chequing account would have been a good way of doing it.
Derek_MK 8y ago
To be fair, they only got negative attention among the people who wouldn't have used Robinhood anyway. Their business model is going after people who don't know better.
bduerst 8y ago
That's not how negative press works in 2018. One-off press events with negative sentiment typically only affect brands that are getting to be known for the first time. While a disastrous launch, most people who heard about this Robinhood checking already knew about the app. I don't think it's going to affect their brand much but will have driven app downloads to check it out, or re-acquisition of churned users. Referral events like this end up driving more core activity, which for Robinhood is making more deposits and trades (not signing up for checking).
- jnwatson 8y ago
  I have a single datum that contradicts your last premise. My father asked me about Robinhood after the announcement, and he hadn’t heard about the company before. After I sent him the memo from the SIPC, he now associates Robinhood with other fly-by-night internet companies. Robinhood got a lot of press from this, well beyond their existing target market.
  - rchaud 8y ago
    Makes sense to me. News like "trade crypto on Robinhood" wouldn't mean anything to someone not interested in that sector, but everybody understands the value of high interest chequing account. And now that they realize it's not happening, they are right to feel that the company is a fly by night operation. The fact that they announced this before confirming it with regulators smacks of CEO arrogance in the "Funding Secured!" vein.
  - bduerst 8y ago
    What you just said supports my comment, since your father had never heard of it before and isn't the target market From my comment: >One-off press events with negative sentiment typically only affect brands that are getting to be known for the first time.
- aeternus 8y ago
  Google trends shows a significant spike: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&geo=US&q=robinhood https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&ge...

freediver 8y ago

Besides "all attention is good", simply compare the amount of media attention for the original news vs this "negative" one. It still looks like one of the most successful announcements from branding ROI perspective.

morpheuskafka 8y ago
Further, no trust was ever requested or place. IIRC they didn't even have a waitlist or anything. They just announced that they were going to launch a product in the future and now are redesigning it some more. Furthermore, this fits into their narrative of disruption. Their target audience will likely see this as, "stupid big banking industry trying to make it hard for them again."
- jljljl 8y ago
  They did have a waitlist. They also had a referral system where referring your friends would bump up your place in the waitlist.
- eropple 8y ago
  I guess I'm not their target audience, then, as a 25-34-year-old tech worker with disposable income and a desire to care about the ROI of my checking account. Because not only will I not use them for this, I closed my account entirely 'cause this is the sign of a disreputable company.
- jnwatson 8y ago
  They did indeed have a waitlist. I was number 215000 or so to sign up, according to them.
  - solarkraft 8y ago
    > number 215000 I wouldn't be surprised to find out that's a lie.
- rchaud 8y ago
  > Their target audience will likely see this as, "stupid big banking industry trying to make it hard for them again." That's a pretty small target audience, and those people are heavy into crypto and gold. Robinhood needs customer growth, and a nice, safe interest-bearing chequing account would have been a good way of doing it.

Derek_MK 8y ago

To be fair, they only got negative attention among the people who wouldn't have used Robinhood anyway. Their business model is going after people who don't know better.

bduerst 8y ago

That's not how negative press works in 2018. One-off press events with negative sentiment typically only affect brands that are getting to be known for the first time. While a disastrous launch, most people who heard about this Robinhood checking already knew about the app. I don't think it's going to affect their brand much but will have driven app downloads to check it out, or re-acquisition of churned users. Referral events like this end up driving more core activity, which for Robinhood is making more deposits and trades (not signing up for checking).

jnwatson 8y ago
I have a single datum that contradicts your last premise. My father asked me about Robinhood after the announcement, and he hadn’t heard about the company before. After I sent him the memo from the SIPC, he now associates Robinhood with other fly-by-night internet companies. Robinhood got a lot of press from this, well beyond their existing target market.
- rchaud 8y ago
  Makes sense to me. News like "trade crypto on Robinhood" wouldn't mean anything to someone not interested in that sector, but everybody understands the value of high interest chequing account. And now that they realize it's not happening, they are right to feel that the company is a fly by night operation. The fact that they announced this before confirming it with regulators smacks of CEO arrogance in the "Funding Secured!" vein.
- bduerst 8y ago
  What you just said supports my comment, since your father had never heard of it before and isn't the target market From my comment: >One-off press events with negative sentiment typically only affect brands that are getting to be known for the first time.
aeternus 8y ago
Google trends shows a significant spike: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&geo=US&q=robinhood https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&ge...