NEWPORT NEWS, Va.-Chalk up Bayport CU here as another CU that has found success with the slogan "Ditch Your Bank."
Monte Crowl, SVP marketing, said that the idea for the campaign came from a combination of all the anti-bank sentiment that has been in the media in recent years.
Bayport CU launched its campaign in early 2011. St. Paul, Minn.-based Affinity Plus FCU also began running a "Ditch Your Bank" campaign last spring ("Bank Takes Shirt Off Your Back-And Then Some," April 25, 2011), but Crowl said the two are unrelated. "We, along with other credit unions across the country, have taken this theme and done different things with it," said Crowl. "We've latched on to this and taken advantage of the economic environment surrounding the banking industry."
Bayport is targeting consumers ages of 18-35 "who are very much tech-savvy but also folks that are disappointed with the general climate in the banking industry."
DitchYourBank.com includes information both about credit unions in general and Bayport CU specifically, as well as a trio of loan calculators to calculate potential savings on checking accounts (the campaign's main focus), auto loans and credit cards.
Making The Switch
DitchYourBank.com says that more than 45,000 consumers have switched to the CU's checking product, although Crowl noted that that figure corresponds to the credit union's total number of checking accounts, not just those related to the Ditch Your Bank campaign. He said that in the past six months, more than 87,000 people had visited the site, 42% of whom did so on a mobile device. About 1,500 of all visitors used the site's compare tool to see if Bayport CU could save them money. Approximately 350 went on to engage in some kind of contact with the CU.
Crowl said that the CU saw a 5.3% increase in checking accounts during 2011, but those were not all the result of the Ditch Your Bank campaign. He noted that the slogan and website are the cornerstone of its marketing, which has emphasized two specific slogans: "All Your Friends Are Doing It," and "Tired of Big Bank Fees?"
"We've really found those to be effective, and we publicize those in various channels," including billboards, radio and signage in its market area. Bayport even hired an airplane to fly a banner along all the area beaches over July 4 weekend, because consumers can visit DitchYourBank.com on their mobile devices. Crowl reported Bayport saw an increase in DitchYourBank.com web traffic that weekend.
As far as getting those new checking-account holders into more profitable products, Crowl said Bayport has been emphasizing cross-sales into its credit card (4.99% APR for the first six months; 3.99% on balance transfers).
The campaign is to run through-mid year, after which it will be reevaluated.
"We didn't really know what was going to happen after the turn of the year ... but it appears that people are still searching for value and find the credit union to be a great alternative," Crowl said.
