Linked off of www.shellfcu.org, the site's slogan–"Youth Finance…informing. improving. participating."–pitches the 42,000-member CU follows through on. The site includes targeted information about auto buying, credit cards and even a green checking account that stresses debit card, e-statement and online banking use.

"We're located in the petrochemical capital of the United States, and we're the first credit union to join the Green Business Alliance," Head said. "Young people connect to that. They care about those things and they care about their causes, and we're reaching out to them about that."

That outreach includes getting out and meeting the students where they live–neighborhood schools such as Deer Park and Sam Rayburn high schools and the University of Houston.

Head said the credit union's marketing manger, Traci Archer, was in the high schools–where it already has branches–meeting students and teachers and helping to hand out promotional material about the credit union as the school year began.

The credit union also is working with booster clubs and other organizations to bring attention to causes such as blood and food drives, pictures of which are then posted on the new iLife site. Blogs are part of the picture there, as are videos shot by a credit union staffer who's also a videographer, Head said.

The credit union is using a variety of resources, in fact, in-house and outsourced, in the effort. That includes working with local marketing and design specialists and with its online banking vendor, Digital Insight, and core processor, Online Resources, and with its e-statement and alerts provider, DigitalMailer, to create new products and alert the existing and potential young members to them.

Lots of upfront legwork, including some guerilla marketing, also has gone into the effort. Well before the August launch of iLife, the credit union held a series of focus groups, attracting students to sessions at a local community center with the promise of pizza and iPod drawings, all without telling the attendees who was the sponsor.

"Once they were there, we asked them what they cared about, what was important to them, what they think about the economy and the environment…and what we found out was that these kinds want to be part of something bigger than themselves and they want to give back to the environment and to their community," Head said.

"Then we drilled down into the financials. These kids have seen parents struggle, and they know about credit cards and debt and they want to shy away from that. That's why we decided to make financial education a big part of what we do with this, too," Head said.

Tech tools are used as the channels to reach these Gen Y consumers. Podcasts offering talks on financial topics are one way. Another is the creation of Christmas Fund-like savings accounts that are a bit harder to access than regular accounts. Another is low-limit, starter credit card accounts.

"Our real premise is not necessarily to sell all these kids products and services right now, but to build relationships with these 16-, 17-, 18-year olds, so they know who we are and what a credit union can do for them and that they can come to us when they do need something," Head said.

"You can't shove things down these kids' throats. We're going to use polls and questionnaires and blogs and develop other ways to keep the iLife site fresh and moving along every day, since technology like this is one of the key ways we can reach this group," Head said.

"We really think that our goal of lowering that average age one year a year is a conservative one, one that we can reach, and in six months or so, we'll take a look and see where we are," she said.

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