EL PASO-evolve FCU here is creating a group of young adult "brand ambassadors" to help increase awareness of the credit union in the community.
Elisa Terrazas-Arce, AVP of marketing at the 45,000-member, $305-million credit union, explained that brand recognition has always been a challenge for the credit union.
"That's part of the reason we changed the name from El Paso Employees to evolve," said Terrazas-Arce. "A lot of people didn't know who we were even though we'd been around for more than 75 years. They confused us with other credit unions, and those that did know who we were thought they had to be an employee of the City of El Paso to join. Now that we've changed our name we're working toward letting people know who we are and what we can do for them."
Known as The evolve Project, the brand ambassador program follows on the heels of a similar experiment run last year that served as a test run of sorts. That campaign consisted of filming videos of ambassadors educating consumers on the difference between banks and credit unions. Terrazas-Arce said that it also helped evolve craft this year's program, which will see teams of ambassadors filming interviews with consumers about what they like and dislike in a financial institution.
"We want to find out what resonates with people and what will motivate them to choose a credit union-and, more importantly, to choose evolve as their primary financial institution," said Terrazas-Arce. The videos will be posted to the credit union's YouTube channel and on its Facebook page. It is also considering using evolve Project participants in advertising, though nothing has been finalized yet.
Membership is not required to participate in the evolve Project, and the CU was holding interviews in mid-January with the hope of beginning to shoot videos sometime during February. eCU is seeking people ages 18-30, and will be putting participants together in teams, including giving them budgets to pay for small prizes like gift cards as a way to incent consumers to take part in the project. eCU is pyaing for all video equipment.
Marketing The Project
evolve FCU is promoting the evolve Project at local college campuses and via e-blasts to members. Participants will be paid a minimum of $100 per month, though there will be specific requirements, including helping create video content and taking part in community events where the credit union has a presence. The CU has not yet settled on how many ambassadors it will hire.
Terrazas-Arce said that evolve didn't look to other credit unions for tips on brand ambassador programs-rather, it took its cues from national campaigns by the likes of Mountain Dew and HootSuite.
Terrazas-Arce also said it is not concerned about not getting the "right" answers to on-camera questions.
"We don't want to have people just tell us that what we're doing is perfect that that we don't need to change our marketing or our advertising strategy," she said. "We're looking for honest answers to the questions we're asking them, and if there's something we're not doing to make them want to move their accounts and become a member, that's something we put a lot of weight on-especially our CEO and our board of directors. That's actually the type of answer we're looking for."
