When Coast Capital Savings recently set up an eight-foot greeting card in busy, downtown Vancouver lambasting bank fees, it didn’t take much prodding to get people to sign it.
“You know, here in Canada, hockey is our favorite pastime. I would say hating bank fees comes second,” said Lawrie Ferguson, senior vice president of marketing at the $12.3 billion credit union.
Since late January, the Vancouver, B.C.-based CU said it has been running its “I Love Fees” tongue-in-cheek campaign, spotlighting bank fees and getting Canadians to evaluate their monthly banking costs. According to a survey commissioned by Coast Capital, Canadians are paying $14.30 each month in service fees. Added up, that is an average of $171.60 per Canadian annually and a combined total of $3 billion each year, based on the credit union’s estimate of the number of Canadians with checking accounts.
Coast Capital’s campaign also includes television ads and outdoor signage with satirical statements such as “Banking fees are like paying rent on my own money, I like that,” and “Banking fees are exciting because you never see them coming.”
Two 8x10-foot greeting cards have been making the rounds at Coast Capital branches and in high foot-traffic spots in Vancouver and Victoria. So far, more than 2,000 people have signed the cards, Ferguson said. Since the marketing campaign started, the credit union, which is Canada’s second largest, has opened up 600 accounts a week, she added. Coast Capital’s free checking account brings in 20,000 new members each year to its 404,000 total membership.
Young people have been especially drawn to the card and how Coast Capital is “making fun of bank fees,” Ferguson noticed. Like many United States-based credit unions, it has struggled to capture Generation Y–that 18-34 age group. As a result of the I Love Fees campaign, 50% of all new accounts opened have come from those under 34 years old, she said. The Web site (ilovefees.com) has a bank-fee ticker, the ability to make your own commercial, T-shirts, hats and other merchandise with the parody slogan. Ferguson said this unusual approach is just one way the credit union is reaching out to a different age set.
“We’re launching some new things on Twitter and Facebook. We’ve done a few viral campaigns that were probably too edgy and risky for regular broadcasts, but sometimes you have to do that kind of stuff,” Ferguson said.
In 2005, Coast Capital was among the first financial institutions in Canada to debut a free checking account. Each year since then, the credit union has come up with new ways to position the account. One year, people were invited to collect free stuff from a retrofitted vending machine. The catch was some of the items were useless, like a 1972 calendar, Ferguson said.
“The point was ‘yes, it’s free, but you can’t do much with it,’” she explained comparing the vending machine gadgets to bank accounts. Ferguson acknowledged that the credit union charges fees, but they pale in comparison to what banks charge on transactional fees.
People were skeptical that Coast Capital’s checking was actually free. Because of the recent economic downturn, more people are watching their finances more closely. It doesn’t help that five of Canada’s largest banks didn’t report any losses last year and increased surcharges, Ferguson said.
“We are all dealing with the fallout from the ongoing recession, and now is the time to be questioning every penny that we spend; banking fees included,” said Mike Bushore, chief innovation officer at Coast Capital. “While we’re having a bit of fun with this at the banks’ expense, we know banking fees are a serious pet peeve with Canadians.”
Ferguson said even though the credit union has been running the campaign for more than a month, the accounts carry the same terms after the marketing is over. Television ads will continue intermittently until the end of the year. Like the retrofitted vending machine, the cards will be featured at credit union events as “conversation starters.”
—msamaad@cutimes.com