Didn't know that Bank of America's popular Keep the Change service was created by Ideo, a product design company. Earlier, I posted a few thoughts about the intelligent design theory for advertising; this is a good illustration of the idea that advertising should be part of product development from the very beginning. Ideo writes, "In less than one year, it attracted 2.5 million customers, translating into more than 700,000 new checking accounts and one million new savings accounts for Bank of America. Impressed by the unique and intuitive nature of the program, 99% of its subscribers have chosen to keep the service--along with their change."
While on Ideo's site, check out this business card project of theirs where a group of designers rethought how the cards will be used in the future as business rituals and values change.
My favorite is this card with perforated elements that you can remove depending on the context of the encounter.
