With a little over three years of research going into developing the final version of this campaign Morgan's confidence is well founded. A joint task force looked at what had been done in the past and studied the general ups and downs of branding.
In the Spring of 2006, the associations ran a beta test campaign in Grand Junction, Colo. and Laramie, Wyo. to gauge what was effective and what needed to be tweaked.

"One of the things we learned is that people knew they could join a credit union they just didn't know why they should," said Morgan. "That test campaign didn't have a particular age demographic target it was more of a middle of the road campaign to just measure a change in perception, which was very successful."

Given the well known trend in the industry of the aging credit union population it was a natural fit to create a campaign that focused on the 18-35 year old demographic.

"We knew that needed to be our future not only in terms of member growth but we knew the campaign had to be targeted to really drive results," said Morgan.

"Due to the efforts of CUNA polling in both states that determine that unlike other jurisdictions the threat of bank attacks were not as great here so we felt good about not having to address that in our branding campaign," added John Dill, president/CEO of the Colorado and Wyoming Associations. "The genius of the credit union movement is the ability to retool our approach to members through expanded service such as ATM and shared branching, which figured heavily in the research of this campaign, which confirmed that in order to speak to our target, a notoriously hard-to-reach demographic, we would need to come up with a concept that focused on the direct benefits of credit union membership."

Going back to the drawing board after the beta test the associations held five focus groups to determine which key concepts the campaign had to drive home.

"We first wanted to know how much credibility credit unions had in the target market and if knowing that information would have made a difference in how they chose a financial institution and would make them consider a switch," said Morgan. "What they really cared about and resonated with them as true starts from a place that is credible, offered better rates and lower fees. The one perception that needed to change and the key to them making a decision was the breadth of the credit union network. Many just thought they would only have access to one or two branches and only a few no-fee ATMs."
After extensive research of Gen Y and Gen X characteristics, Am?(C)lie Company, the associations' agency of record, developed a strategy and messaging to educate and inform these groups about the advantages of credit union membership, including better interest rates, excellent customer service and a number of convenience features–such as credit unions' extensive ATM and shared branching networks.

"This group wants to know 'what's in it for me?' We also learned that in communicating with this market segment, messaging needed to be direct, simple, honest, humorous and subtle–not a hard sell–and it had to be visually striking, clean and contemporary," said Dill. "We didn't want something boring or that had been seen before. Anything that might have worked well in the past would not be something that these generations respond to."

Reaching the 'Average Joe'

The result was the creation of the "Average Joe" character, who finds himself in a variety of troublesome and funny financial scenarios, such as getting literally pummeled by nickel and dime fees ("We Won't Nickel and Dime You"), seeing the person in front of him in the ATM line getting sucked in by the machine ("ATM Fees Really Suck"), and finding himself tethered to a ball and chain of a loan ("Don't Get Tied to a High Interest Rate").

Consumers are directed to www.creditunionfacts.com, where they can learn more about credit unions and find a credit union near them through the zip code locator. The zip code locator includes all branches of Association-member credit unions in Colorado and Wyoming. Each listing includes a brief field of membership descriptor that will allow users to assess whether they are eligible to join a particular credit union.

"In this market they don't want to be sold they prefer to do the research on their own so the Web site creates an opportunity for them to find the information they want for themselves," said Morgan.

In addition to frequent television and radio advertising, less than two weeks after its launch, Colorado credit unions appeared on Channel 9, KUSA-TV's Colorado & Company program, a magazine-style show that airs live on weekdays from 10-11 a.m. Chrissie Manley of Premier Members Federal Credit Union, Kelly Wagoner of White Crown Federal Credit Union and Rich Jones of Elevations Credit Union, explained why credit unions are a better alternative to banks.

The billboards and radio and television advertisements, which will run through mid-June will be supplemented by Web, e-mail and sponsorship opportunities running throughout the summer with the media blitz picking up again in the fall.

To track the success of the campaign Amelie and Company developed the Campaign Dashboard, a Web-based measurement application. Credit unions are asked to input data to track membership and asset growth during the course of the campaign. Data collected through the Dashboard will be combined with post-campaign survey findings at the end of 2007 to analyze the success of the campaign and develop recommendations for an ongoing branding effort.

Beyond measuring the effectiveness of the campaign, the Dashboard also houses a number of valuable campaign tools for individual credit unions, including free-of-charge research on this hard-to-reach demographic and campaign news. Also included are downloadable design templates to help credit unions leverage the campaign on the local level, including statement stuffers, lobby posters, direct mail pieces, and print advertisements.

The billboards and radio and television advertisements, which will run through mid-June will be supplemented by Web, e-mail and sponsorship opportunities running throughout the summer with the media blitz picking up again in the fall.

"The real strength of this campaign is the solid research based development of the creative and how we would communicate with our target audience," said Morgan. "We also did an online survey for the quantitative aspects as well as the final creative concept so going in we are fairly confident in this campaign."

Dill adds that future plans for the campaign include sharing it with other states for purchase at a low cost.