U.S. Bank Makes Corporate Reports Interactive

U.S. Bank’s corporate reports are getting an added dimension, literally. Staff will be able to use digital watermark technology and a smartphone app to access portions of the bank’s corporate reports as dynamic, visual content that could eventually turn static reports into a multimedia experience that can change over time.

“The idea is not unlike the barcodes that are placed in print media,” says Dominic Venturo, chief innovation officer at U.S. Bank, who says there are both internal and consumer uses for watermark technology.

The Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank (USB), which has $340 billion in assets, has partnered with Digimarc Discover Online Services Portal to create the digital watermarks, which are inserted in the bank’s 2011 annual report and corporate citizenship report. “The watermark causes the web browser or the app to take action, it can take you to a picture or a video,” Venturo says.

Digimarc (DMRC), whose clients include mostly print media firms, provides digital identification, or technology that allows smartphones and other devices to locate and retrieve information from code embedded in physical objects. It holds patents in digital watermarking, content identification management, and object discovery. The firm has provided watermarks for clients such as Sports Illustrated, which has provided links to video from its print product. Digimarc also says its technology has been used by a consortium of central banks to combat counterfeiting.

The codes Digimarc embeds in U.S. Bank reports recognize and open a variety of content, such as videos, webinars, charts, and photos. To access the content, readers with an iPhone or Android device download a free Digimarc Discover App from iTunes or Google Play. Examples of enhanced content at U.S. Bank thus far include a video about the bank, more information about the bank’s recent innovations, new products and services, a connection to natural disaster relief resources from the Red Cross, and entries for a national banking industry contest to save money.

U.S. Bank can also use the watermarks to update at least some parts of the corporate report over time. The bank’s yearly report is also used as a sales and strategy report for a full year. The visual content accessed via the watermarks can be updated and changed over time as pilots get completed, results of tests become available, or sales strategies evolve to meet market conditions.

U.S. Bank is also considering uses outside of internal reports, for instance to embed mobile banking app demos in brochures. “There could be a demo for remote deposit capture, for example, in the watermark,” Venturo says.

There are also uses for shopping and payments, similar to the use case for barcodes — people scan the barcodes on products to access additional information such as nutrition or product information; or, in the case of a financial institution, coupons or merchant rewards.

“There may be an image of a special offer in a branch or at the point of sale, you can directly link to the offer and respond to it by using the watermark, without having to enter a URL,” Venturo says.

The U.S. Bank watermark deployment is another example of how tech embedded in mobile phones can be a catalyst for wide-ranging innovation. Banks are considering how to make emerging mobile tech more secure and flexible in the delivery of content.