I've been traveling a lot in the past month for both work andnot-work reasons. On each trip, I've made a point to ask people,family members, Uber drivers and business professionals aboutcredit unions to see what they know and think.

I spoke with 18 people – none of whom have a credit unionaccount. Of the 18 people I casually interviewed, all of them knewor understood very little about credit unions.

“My mom was a nurse and I know she had an account for yearsbecause of the union she belonged to,” responded one person. “And Ithink some of my friends have accounts at one.”

“I don't know where a credit union is around here,” said anusher at a Colorado Rockies game. He continued, “Maybe I shouldlook around? I don't know.”

My favorite response was from a person in Miami, when I askedabout what it would take to move their account from Chase Bank to alocal credit union: “Why in the hell would I do that? I've beenwith Chase for years and I don't want to deal with changingeverything.”

The underlying story with 17 of the 18 people I spoke with wasthat they picked their current financial institution years agobecause it solved an in-the-moment need and they've never had agood reason to change.

“Because I was in the Army, I don't have any fees and WellsFargo covers up to 10 ATM transaction fees each month,” said anArmy veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Also, I get freechecking and I don't give a sh*t about mobile banking stuff.”

All fair points.

Even when I had a lengthy amount of time to explain what acredit union is, it just didn't seem to click. For instance, I wasdriving with a family member through downtown Boston and even thatwasn't enough time for them to fully grasp the point of a creditunion or find a good enough reason to switch.

The most positive reaction I received from anyone was when Iexplained how it's free to use any credit union ATMs around thecountry, as long as you're a member. After that, interest wasminimal.

Now, maybe it's the delivery vessel (me) or maybe it's that theaudience I spoke with just didn't care? Or maybe there just isn't astrong message about credit unions that resonates with a massnon-credit union audience? Obviously it's resonating with somepeople because we're still watching overall membership numbers grownationwide. But who are those people? Relatives of existingmembers?

Here's my point: Having this many conversations and tryingmultiple angles to try and test out what clicks and what doesn'twith non-credit union members was an interesting, if notentertaining, experiment.

Since I've been inside the credit union industry, there's alwaysbeen one topic that has popped up every so often – the idea of anationwide credit union branding campaign. But, with theindividuality of each credit union, larger credit unions either notwanting it or just not interested in supporting a campaign, and thechallenge of a consumer message that could apply to the industry asa whole – it's a difficult task.

It's like asking Wells Fargo and Bank of America to go alongwith a community bank marketing and social media campaign and spendtheir money on something the big banks know would be a pointlesseffort. Another analogy would be creating a campaign that workedfor The Gap and your small-town clothing store. One size does notfit all.

I started digging around in some folders from my previous publicrelations life to get some ideas on how to solve this (or decide ifit was unsolvable) and found email campaigns, social mediastrategies, landing pages and old-school media pitches.

And the only thing that really stood out that might work for anoverall national campaign to fit every size credit union was anold-school approach of a media tour around different regions of thecountry.

It goes like this: CUNA and/or NAFCU join together to decidesome kind of actionable message and then apply that messageindividually to 50 small- and medium-sized credit unions and 50large credit unions spread around the country. CUNA and NAFCU thentrain their marketing people and those from the selected creditunions on the message and deliverable strategies. Then the nationalmarketers hit the road for one long summer and go to each mediamarket served by the selected credit unions. From there, thenational marketing pros work with the local marketing and publicrelations people to visit TV and radio stations to talk about themessage and connect that to a local event happening in thosemarkets.

Once the “credit union summer” is over, the local credit unionmarketers train the other credit union staff in their area on themessage and how to deliver it and so on and so on. Then you have anentire industry on the same page with the same message and aspecialized impact on every credit union market in our country.

I know, it takes a lot of work and a lot of planning, but I'vedone this before for other regulated industries and the benefitsyou reap from this kind of planning and execution will last foryears.

Don't expect perfection, but do expect lives to be changed in anincredible way and a new energy to waft through credit union staffand communities.

Michael Ogden is executive editor for CU Times. He can bereached at [email protected].