I love video as a communication media. The combination of sound and moving pictures so much more engaging and more memorable than text.

We wrote in our research last year about how we're starting to see video being used more and more by eBusiness teams as an efficient and effective way to educate customers about products, encourage sales and deliver customer service.

With the Academy Awards coming up, we thought it would be both fun and helpful to highlight some of the best examples we've seen of online video in retail financial services in the past year.  With the help of the rest of team, I've drawn up a list of our favourites in five categories:

Product marketing video
DNB's S for Savings Plan video (Norway).
PayPal’s future of shopping video.

Service marketing video
Commonwealth Bank of Australia's Welcome to NetBank video.
E*Trade's Take Control In 3 Easy Steps video (US).
Mint.com's 90-second overview (US).
Lloyds TSB's money manager video (UK).

Educational (‘how to’) video
Aegon's pension plan in 30 seconds (Netherlands).
Commonwealth Bank of Australia's choosing the right card video.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia's financial planning video.

Interactive video
ING North America's ING For Life (US).
AXA's BoxPlus video (Germany).

Integration of video throughout the customer journey
easyCredit (Germany).
E*Trade (US).
La Caixa (Spain).
Sparkasse Hannover (Germany).

What are the best uses of online video you have seen? Let us know what we've missed, and what your favourites are.

Benjamin

PS Perhaps it's time I got myself a video-blog. ;-)