Bachelor’s graduate Laura Zengel has been awarded the 2020 Alfred Gerardi Memorial Prize (AGGP) in the category of Best Bachelor’s Thesis. With her thesis, “Influencer Communication in the Financial Sector—An Empirical Feasibility Study on the Implementation of Digital Opinion Leaders in the Marketing Strategies of Regional Banks,” the 24-year-old impressed the jury and received the prize, which comes with a cash award of 2,500 euros. The thesis was supervised by Prof. Dr. Heinrich Holland. The prize is awarded annually by the German Dialogue Marketing Association (DDV) for the best thesis in dialogue marketing to actively promote young researchers.
Given the increasing flood of information and advertising on the internet and the resulting growing consumer need for personal and trustworthy recommendations from third parties, Laura Zengel’s thesis examined whether and to what extent influencers also represent a suitable marketing tool for regional banks. Her research showed that regional banks can certainly leverage the mechanisms of digital opinion leaders. “However, a prior understanding of industry-specific strengths is crucial for the success and authenticity of a campaign,” said the award winner. Influencers should therefore under no circumstances be exploited as financial advisors—rather, they should act as friendly advisors who raise social media users’ awareness of financial topics and refer them to the professional expertise of branch offices or online branches for further information. In times of intensifying competition, this approach can strengthen the rationale for regional banks’ physical presence and represent a significant step toward securing future customer loyalty.
“I am very pleased that students at Mainz University of Applied Sciences specializing in dialogue marketing have now won the Alfred Gerardi Memorial Prize seven times over the past ten years for their bachelor’s and master’s theses,” emphasizes Prof. Dr. Heinrich Holland, the thesis advisor.
Laura Zengel’s bachelor’s thesis is very well done; the theoretical foundations for the topic are well established. Her own expert survey is comprehensive, and the analysis leads to well-reasoned and actionable recommendations for regional banks.
Laura Zengel highlights the “fine line between incentive-driven product placement and inauthentic sales push,” thereby identifying the central problem and revealing the limitations of influencer communication for financial service providers, Holland adds.
The award winner is from Obertshausen. While completing her apprenticeship as a bank clerk at Sparkasse Langen-Seligenstadt, she pursued a part-time degree in the Department of Economics. She successfully completed her bachelor’s degree in business administration in February 2020. With her degree in hand, she began her work-integrated Master’s program in Management at Mainz University of Applied Sciences that same month.
Laura has remained loyal to Sparkasse Langen-Seligenstadt. She has been working full-time in the bank’s Digital Communications department since 2018.
