{"version":"2026-advertising-rate-pilot-v1","name":"SwitchWize Advertising-vs-Rate Pilot","generatedAt":"2026-08-26T00:00:00.000Z","citeAs":"SwitchWize, \"Advertising-vs-Rate Pilot.\" Retrieved from https://www.switchwize.com/research/advertising-rate-index.","status":"exploratory_pilot","methodology":{"summary":"This is a small, fully transparent pilot, not a validated Top-50 index. It tests whether Chen, Hu & Ma's finding on bank TV-advertising posture (NBER Working Paper 34220, 2026) -- that high-market-share banks lead with service and trust while price-focused entrants lead with rate -- shows up in homepage hero marketing copy, and whether that posture correlates with a bank's own live rate gap versus the top tracked savings rate.","scope_reduction_disclosed":"The original design called for TV/YouTube video-ad classification across roughly 50 institutions with a 150-item human-adjudicated gold set and reported inter-rater agreement. Video-ad collection at that scale was out of scope for this pass (real infrastructure and access constraints, and a meaningful ToS/access risk around bulk video collection). A genuine human-adjudicated gold set also could not be produced in this research pass -- publishing a set of labels claimed as 'human-adjudicated' without an actual human labeling them would be a fabrication this program exists to prevent. In its place, this pilot uses three independent, blind LLM classification passes (not human raters) over homepage hero marketing copy only, and reports actual pairwise agreement across those three passes as the reliability signal. This is disclosed explicitly, not implied to be human validation.","classification_method":"Three independent agent calls, each given the identical published rubric (see rubric field) and the identical set of captured homepage hero copy, with no communication between them and no shared context. Majority vote (2 of 3) used as the final category; institutions without unanimous 3/3 agreement AND flagged as topically off-target (e.g. credit-card or auto-loan copy captured instead of savings/banking copy) by a majority of raters are excluded from the clean index and listed separately.","rubric":{"PRICE":"Copy leads with a specific rate, APY, fee, discount, or other concrete financial benefit number as the primary hook.","SERVICE":"Copy leads with functional convenience, ease of use, customer support, features, or how-it-works framing as the primary hook, without a headline rate/fee number.","TRUST_EMOTIONAL":"Copy leads with brand reputation, awards, community, relationships, aspirational lifestyle imagery, or emotional appeal as the primary hook, without a headline rate/fee number and without functional/service framing as the lead."},"reliability":{"pairwise_agreement_rater1_vs_rater2":0.727,"pairwise_agreement_rater1_vs_rater3":0.727,"pairwise_agreement_rater2_vs_rater3":1,"average_pairwise_agreement":0.818,"n_items_rated":11,"n_items_unanimous":7,"note":"Agreement is across three independent LLM classification passes, not human inter-rater agreement. Reported as-is, not adjusted or rounded up."},"rate_gap_source":"Each institution's own most recent tracked HYSA (high-yield savings account) APY from rate_observations, compared against the same 4.13% top-tracked-average APY the live Bank Gap Index used for its August 2026 release, for direct consistency with that published figure.","caveat":"N=7 in the clean index is far too small for any correlation coefficient, confidence interval, or statistical significance claim, and none is computed or implied here. This is a descriptive pilot table, not an inferential study. A reproducible expansion path (more institutions, a real human-labeling pass, video-ad content) is named in the published methodology page, not promised as already done."},"sources":[{"label":"Chase homepage","url":"https://chase.com","capturedAt":"2026-08-26"},{"label":"Bank of America homepage","url":"https://bankofamerica.com","capturedAt":"2026-08-26"},{"label":"Wells Fargo homepage","url":"https://wellsfargo.com","capturedAt":"2026-08-26"},{"label":"U.S. Bank homepage","url":"https://usbank.com","capturedAt":"2026-08-26"},{"label":"Ally Bank homepage","url":"https://ally.com","capturedAt":"2026-08-26"},{"label":"UFB Direct homepage","url":"https://ufbdirect.com","capturedAt":"2026-08-26"},{"label":"SoFi homepage","url":"https://www.sofi.com/banking/","capturedAt":"2026-08-26"},{"label":"Capital One homepage (excluded, off-target copy)","url":"https://capitalone.com","capturedAt":"2026-08-26"},{"label":"Discover homepage (excluded, majority off-target)","url":"https://discover.com","capturedAt":"2026-08-26"},{"label":"Navy Federal Credit Union homepage (excluded, off-target copy)","url":"https://www.navyfederal.org","capturedAt":"2026-08-26"},{"label":"Fidelity homepage (excluded, majority off-target)","url":"https://www.fidelity.com","capturedAt":"2026-08-26"}],"clean_index":[{"institution":"chase","institution_display_name":"Chase","market_position":"high_market_share_incumbent","captured_headline":"Chase Savings","captured_subhead":"Savings made simple with our most popular savings account. Automatically set money aside, earn interest and track your savings on the go with our Chase Mobile app.","category":"SERVICE","agreement":"unanimous_3_of_3","own_apy":0.01,"top_tracked_apy":4.13,"paid_gap_points":4.12,"apy_observed_at":"2026-08-26"},{"institution":"wells-fargo","institution_display_name":"Wells Fargo","market_position":"high_market_share_incumbent","captured_headline":"Checking that fits perfectly","captured_subhead":"Explore all the benefits then find a checking account that suits your lifestyle","category":"SERVICE","agreement":"unanimous_3_of_3","own_apy":0.01,"top_tracked_apy":4.13,"paid_gap_points":4.12,"apy_observed_at":"2026-08-26"},{"institution":"usbank","institution_display_name":"U.S. Bank","market_position":"high_market_share_incumbent","captured_headline":"The NFL runs on teamwork. So do we.","captured_subhead":"That's why U.S. Bank Smartly Checking and Savings team up to help you earn more from day one.","category":"TRUST_EMOTIONAL","agreement":"unanimous_3_of_3","own_apy":0.05,"top_tracked_apy":4.13,"paid_gap_points":4.08,"apy_observed_at":"2026-08-22"},{"institution":"bankofamerica","institution_display_name":"Bank of America","market_position":"high_market_share_incumbent","captured_headline":"Your financial goals matter","captured_subhead":"We can help you achieve them through Better Money Habits financial education and programs that make communities stronger.","category":"TRUST_EMOTIONAL","agreement":"unanimous_3_of_3","own_apy":null,"top_tracked_apy":4.13,"paid_gap_points":null,"apy_observed_at":null,"note":"No HYSA rate_observations row found for this institution at research time -- excluded from the gap calculation, not fabricated. Marketing classification still reported."},{"institution":"ally","institution_display_name":"Ally Bank","market_position":"digital_challenger","captured_headline":"Spend on Tacos. Save for Tulum.","captured_subhead":"Automatically save while you spend with Ally Bank.","category":"TRUST_EMOTIONAL","agreement":"unanimous_3_of_3","own_apy":3,"top_tracked_apy":4.13,"paid_gap_points":1.13,"apy_observed_at":"2026-08-26"},{"institution":"sofi","institution_display_name":"SoFi","market_position":"digital_challenger","captured_headline":"\"Best Online Bank of 2026\" Award Winner","captured_subhead":null,"category":"TRUST_EMOTIONAL","agreement":"unanimous_3_of_3","own_apy":3.1,"top_tracked_apy":4.13,"paid_gap_points":1.03,"apy_observed_at":"2026-08-07"},{"institution":"ufb-direct","institution_display_name":"UFB Direct","market_position":"digital_challenger","captured_headline":"Earn up to 3.26% APY*","captured_subhead":"Make the most of your money and earn up to 3.26% APY* on all balances. Harness the power of compound interest and reach your financial goals faster with Portfolio Savings.","category":"PRICE","agreement":"unanimous_3_of_3","own_apy":3.26,"top_tracked_apy":4.13,"paid_gap_points":0.87,"apy_observed_at":"2026-08-26"}],"excluded":[{"institution":"capitalone","institution_display_name":"Capital One","reason":"Captured homepage hero copy was about credit cards (\"Take charge of your credit\"), not savings/banking. Flagged not topically relevant by 1 of 3 raters, and the captured page itself is a poor proxy for Capital One's savings marketing specifically."},{"institution":"discover","institution_display_name":"Discover","reason":"Flagged not topically relevant by majority (2 of 3) raters -- generic brand tagline capture, ambiguous whether it represents savings-specific marketing."},{"institution":"navyfederal","institution_display_name":"Navy Federal Credit Union","reason":"Captured homepage hero copy was about auto loans, not savings. Flagged not topically relevant unanimously."},{"institution":"fidelity","institution_display_name":"Fidelity","reason":"Flagged not topically relevant by majority (2 of 3) raters -- generic investing tagline, not savings-specific."}],"failed_capture":[{"institution":"citi","reason":"Homepage is JavaScript-rendered; static fetch returned only navigation chrome, no hero copy."},{"institution":"cit-bank","reason":"Automated fetch blocked (HTTP 403)."},{"institution":"synchrony","reason":"Connection reset during fetch."},{"institution":"american-express","reason":"Connection reset during fetch."},{"institution":"usaa","reason":"Automated fetch blocked (HTTP 403)."},{"institution":"alliant","reason":"Fetch timeout."},{"institution":"schwab","reason":"Automated fetch triggered an authorization/bot-check error page, not real content."},{"institution":"pnc","reason":"Fetch timeout."},{"institution":"marcus","reason":"Connection refused."}]}