CU Looks to Moviegoers for New Members

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The $123 million HEW FCU has piggybacked onto Hollywood in an effort to attract new members from the District of Columbia. The program, which got underway in 2005, has brought in between 50 – 100 new members who responded to ads they saw at some Washington area theatres. The ads, which were part of the mix of ads leading up to the movie presentation, invited moviegoers to join the credit union if they live, work, attend school or worship in Washington D.C. The credit union, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, was first founded to serve federal employees working at the Social Security Administration and later the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. In March 2004, NCUA granted the credit union’s field of membership request to serve the entire city of Washington. Khalilah Long, acting marketing director for the CU, said that the advertising was expensive but that the credit union had managed to cut the cost somewhat. She also reported HEW plans to employ more sophisticated tracking techniques to better gauge the advertising’s impact in the next six months.