WEST SAYVILLE, N.Y.-Nassau Educators FCU's newest advertising campaign is literally spelling out its name.
NEFCU's advertising partnership with Hasbro and Scholastic Magazine allows the credit union to use the Scrabble game in its advertising.
"Scrabble is one the country's most recognizable and classic board games, so we felt this partnership gave us a real way of defining our identity and spelling out our value and full range of financial services," explained Eileen Nolan, SVP of marketing and community relations for the $1.3-billion credit union.
The Scrabble campaign centers on TV, print and radio advertising.
"It's really an integrated campaign," Nolan said.
It is also supported with concurrent initiatives with the Scholastic educator brand. NEFCU partnered with Scholastic to provide teachers with a customized calendar planner that details classroom tips and easy access to benefits NEFCU membership provides.
In 2006, Nassau Educators FCU branded itself by its acronym, NEFCU. So it seemed only natural for the CU to align its advertising campaign with a classic board game spelling out the name in tiles, Nolan said. "And it's aligned with education," added Nolan.
"We initiated communication with Hasbro and Scholastic, and told them what our intent was," she said. "We went through the legal process so we could use the game in our advertising. Hasbro's approval took several weeks - about a six or seven week period."
Plans call for the campaign to run into next year.
NEFCU declined to share the cost of the campaign, but Nolan said ROI has been delivered in the form of 7% membership growth. In addition, awareness of its brand among prospects has risen to 10% from 5%.
"Our goal is really to continue to get the NEFCU name out there, and to maintain levels of awareness and grow those," Nolan said.
NEFCU's CEO, Edward Paternostro, added, "We're also trying to brand ourselves that we are not only for teachers, not only for educators, but also for professionals."
The partnership does not allow the CU to offer Hasbro employees membership, as the company is not located in the area. (Hasbro is based in Rhode Island.) Still, Paternostro noted NEFCU has added two new branches in the past year and membership now exceeds 130,000.
The reasons for the growth are simple, Nolan said.
"We're continually listening to our members," she said. "We're serving them very effectively. We appreciate that this is a marathon and not a sprint. We have been able to deliver to our members in ways that matters."
