Third Degree Advertising, an Oklahoma City agency, is expanding for the first time to the East Coast by opening a Durham, N.C. branch to serve what it said is the growing interest by credit unions to "leverage their advantage over banks."

The Durham office formally opened earlier in the month and serves a client group of Georgia and North Carolina CUs. It will also act as a base for expansion of a CU financial literacy package for teachers run by Banzai, a Utah-based firm purchased a year ago by Third Degree.

"The Raleigh-Durham-Charlotte area has now become an important area for high tech talent and so it seems logical and a strategic move for us to establish a base here," said Roy Page, president/CEO of Third Degree, which has been a principal agency for the $2.2 billion Tinker FCU of Oklahoma City.