HOUSTON -
Motorists around the city were scratching their heads at last month’s appearance of billboards reading “Banks Hate Us.”
After all, there are several candidates for the banks’ hatred. The Internal Revenue Service. The regulators.
These days, even mortgage brokers who brought them all those bad subprime loans could attract the banks ire.
The target was no clearer when two weeks later a kicker was added to the same billboard signs with the assertion “People Trust Us.”
It was only two weeks later the messenger was revealed: it was a credit union, People’s Trust FCU.
This coy ad campaign will culminate with one final message on New Year’s Day “Happy UnBanking,” which will suggest that consumers seek out the credit union.
“We’re stirring things up in the community, that’s what we’re doing,” said Vernon Babilon, chief financial officer for the $280-million credit union, of the subtle dig at the local banks. “When the billboards went up nobody knew who it was.”
The new campaign is the latest of bold efforts by some credit unions to draw the distinction between the not-for-profits institutions and banks.
Other CUs Also In The Act
Last summer, for example, Alabama CU launched a campaign called “Dump Your Bank.” In Michigan, credit unions ran radio ads highlighting Comerica Bank’s decision to move its senior executives out of state to a new facility in Texas. Frost Capital FCU, in York, Penn., ran radio ads that concluded, “Hasta la vista, banky.” Manchester, N.H.’s St. Mary’s Bank, the nation’s first credit union, ran a newspaper ad headlined, “Why Do Business With A Bank When You Can OWN One.”
But the People’s Trust FCU campaign is more subtle, never explicitly attacking banks.
“This is a kind of different approach. We’re not really attacking. We don’t say we hate banks; we’re saying that they don’t want us in business,” said Babilon. “We had no plans or desire to do any kind of bank bashing and to this day we won’t.”
The so-called guerilla ad campaign was designed by local ad house Richards/Carlberg, the same firm that created the Motel Six “We’ll leave the light on” campaign.
The credit union campaign will maintain the Happy Unbanking tagline and includes a website and supporting materials and other media, possibly TV and radio. “We want to build on this for several years. It’s going to be pretty slick,” said Babilon.
People’s Trust FCU was chartered as Shell Employees FCU in 1935 and changed its name in 2005 when it was approved to serve the entire city of Houston. (c) 2007 The Credit Union Journal and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.cujournal.com http://www.sourcemedia.com
