The league’s campaign uses bulletin boards that urge consumer to switch from a bank to a credit union.
In a new branding pitch aimed at a youthful demographic, the League of Southeastern Credit Unions has launched a $1.3 million TV, radio and viral co-op campaign with a switch message.
The Florida-Alabama campaign using the tagline, “Credit Unions: We’re Giving Banking a Better Name,” is slated to run for four to six weeks using a broad media mix but with a heavy online emphasis. There are 100 CU participants in the two states.
The campaign, “geared toward Gen X is designed to educate consumers about how credit unions are different than other financial institutions while saving their members millions of dollars each year,” said a league statement outlining details of the blitz.
“The campaign concept, developed by Scout Branding Co. of Birmingham, Ala., revolves around research that shows 60% of consumers don’t know what a credit union is,” said the league. Officials stressed that the campaign is voluntary and that the length of the media run would depend on how much is raised in each market.
In recent years as the recession has worsened, state leagues have turned away from insisting on mandatory participation since the experience in Pennsylvania and California-Nevada, for example, triggered too many disaffiliations.
The media buys in each of the 14 markets in Alabama and Florida “reflect the trends of Gen X with online and television buys during shows watched by Gen X,” said the league.
“Consumers that surf many local and national websites will see the banner ads as well as pre-rolls before online videos,” the league continued, noting that “Facebook and its 8.6 million users in Alabama and Florida will also see the image campaign ads.”
The ads direct consumers to the website, www.betternameforbanking.com.
The website, said the league, has three interactive buttons “where consumers can see what they would save if they had their mortgage loan, auto loan and a credit card with a credit union. Consumers can compare the average rates between a credit union and a bank by viewing the “What’s Better?” page.
Real-time rate data from Datatrac provides the comparison information, “which shows the credit union rate is better in almost every category,” said the LSECU release, noting that consumers will have a CU search function on the website to make it easy to find a credit union near them.
The ads and the website also contain a shared branching component, and for many consumers “it will be eye-opening the amount they would save” by doing business with a CU, said Patrick LaPine, president/CEO of LSECU.
