PHOENIX — The $1.1 billion Arizona State Credit Union was stillreaping a deposit windfall last week from a 4%, $25,000 moneymarket account ad that appeared Nov. 5 in one of the souvenirnewspaper editions heralding the election of Barack Obama.
“I think we've brought in $11 million alone since our specialArizona Republic ad appeared and we're well ahead of our goalhaving already generated $50 million from this campaign,” saidCathy Olague, vice president of marketing.
The original goal “and we thought we were conservative,” was toraise $25 million, much of it to be drawn from bank consumers, shesaid.
Arizona State figured it landed a marketing coup when it managed toplace a back page ad in The Arizona Republic special editioncovering the Obama election. A total of 500,000 copies of thespecial edition were grabbed up by Phoenix readers and the papersold out within hours.
Over the Nov. 8-9 weekend, the state's largest newspaper re-ran theinsert in its Sunday edition-complete with the Arizona State ad. Asbefore, the Arizona State ad was the only one in thenewspaper.
Paul Stull, senior vice president of Arizona State, was gratifiedthat it was able to get “full coverage for the credit union and atthe time special awareness for the industry.”
“We decided to place the singular ad because no matter whichcandidate won, it would be a souvenir of a historic event,” saidStull.
–[email protected]