'Image Campaign' Leads to Membership Spike in Fla., Ala.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Credit union membership is up in Florida and Alabama, thanks in part to the success of a long-term branding campaign started more than three years ago.

The "cooperative image campaign" was launched by the League of Southeastern Credit Unions (LSCU) in 2011 as a way to collectively raise awareness of credit unions in Florida and Alabama. The promotions are based around commercials, but also include billboards and online components aimed at educating consumers about CUs. The ads and more info can be seen at www.betternameforbanking.com.

"What we're also trying to do is put credit unions in unique spaces — spaces they haven't been before," explained Mike Bridges, VP of communications at LSCU. "What makes our campaign unique is that we have TV and radio, but in the last couple of years we have really gone heavily online. We're pushing ourselves into online spaces where consumers haven't seen credit unions before." That includes internet streaming radio site Pandora, as well as YouTube, mobile geo-targeting and Yahoo e-mails that allow for ads.

Credit union numbers have soared nationwide since the campaign first launched in summer 2011, with Bank Transfer Day providing a swift boost in membership, followed by residual gains that are still being felt as consumers become more and more aware of CUs. The two states served by LSCU have seen 370,000 new members join credit unions between 2011 and 2014 (250,000 in Florida and 120,000 in Alabama). From 2007 to 2010, those two states only grew by 73,000 members.

Bridges said a multitude of factors have played into those gains. "The economy has come back, the image campaign, credit unions are marketing more — all of it is working together," he said. "It's not just the image campaign, but it's those three or four factors working together that have caused this."

Increased Impressions

The campaign's ads focus on making sure consumers understand what a credit union is, including that anyone can join and that CUs often have better rates and fees than traditional banks. LSCU used the same ads in 2014 that it used in 2012 — the campaign went on hiatus in 2013 as the league focused on CUNA's "Don't Tax My CU" message — and plans to use the same ads next year, too.

"But [for 2015] we're coming up with some online ads that will sort of complement that brand but be more sharable-type content that you can push through social media," said Bridges. "It takes our brand just a bit further than what the TV ads have done in the past," including being a bit more humorous.

While LSCU used social media for this year's campaign, Bridges said that the "heavy hitters" were YouTube, Pandora and Yahoo. The league uses YouTube "prerolls" — the short ads that play before a video — and saw a dramatic increase in click-through rates and impressions.

"We saw YouTube views go from 96,000 in 2012 to over 460,000 in 2014. So more people are watching it on YouTube and seeing it through the prerolls," said Bridges.

Pandora and YouTube had click-through rates double those of any other medium, he said.

"People are used to seeing video now," he said. "You could go back five years to 2010 — you didn't see as much online video, or marketing didn't utilize the online video portion as well as they do now."

Going National?

LSCU President and CEO Patrick LaPine told CU Journal in 2011 that until every state and league buys in for a national campaign, state leagues will have to lead the charge in these efforts. But with increased consolidation among state leagues in the three years since this campaign began, he said it's time revisit the idea of a national campaign.

"Digital advertising is extremely affordable and social media is an easy way to cooperatively get a unified message to consumers without having to raise millions of dollars," he wrote in an e-mail. "We found through our campaign that reaching consumers online is effective and they will click through to learn more about a credit union. The difficult part of a national campaign is getting buy-in from every state. I don't think we can keep putting off this idea without really sitting down and talking about it as an industry."

LaPine added that "system partners" such as PSCU and CO-OP could also help with coordinating resources and building brand awareness.

Until that time comes, Bridges said that the big takeaway here is the importance of repeating the message until consumers hear it.

"It's another touch point," he said. "Consumers see the cooperative image campaign, they see a credit union ad or billboard, they see credit unions in their community, and it's just credit union, credit union, credit union. The more they see that, the more it resonates with them."