Recalled by one CU leader about a bank at which she was working 13 years ago: "Our CEO and senior management staff was approached by a bill pay vendor to offer online bill payment. Considering all the competition between banks, the CEO wanted to be the first to offer the service. This was in 1995, the Internet was still new and this was certainly an innovative idea," she said. So the bank began developing this new service by setting up a list of local utility companies, major department stores and anyone else who would accept this type of payment. The payment for your bills had to be debited out of the customer's checking account three weeks prior to the bill due date. The marketing materials included: a brochure-with a list of all the utility companies and stores, an instruction booklet and several disks with the application program to download to the customer's computer.
"After many months of developing the program and training the staff - including a four-inch binder for every employee-plus thousands of dollars spent, the bill pay vendor went out of business. This happened before this service was ever offered to the public. The bill pay vendor was bought out by another vendor but the process was entirely different. So all of the marketing materials and training materials were discarded. And there went a very costly endeavor to offer a new service based solely on wanting to beat the competition and be first."
Matt Davis, director of PR for Members CU in Winston-Salem, N.C., shared this story about a program it referred to as "Seeing Double."
"This program was an attempt at developping an exciting prize-based-savings account that rewarded people for various savings and transaction activity. The more we planned, the more things we added to the program. The theory was that if we are going to get people excited about this program, let's let it touch as many products as possible. Eventually, we had created so many facets and rules to the program that even those of us responsible for creating the initiative were confused. 'Seeing Double' became a miserable failure-an absolute turkey! Prize winners would make comments like 'What did I do to win this?'"
Front-line staff, already responsible for many other things, found the program to be difficult to explain. "External marketing mimicked the program's complexity. Essentially, the principle of 'Keep it Simple, Stupid' was not followed. The one silver lining was that this program led to the development the CU's successful 'What are you saving for?' program launched in April of this year. Without the lumps we took with 'Seeing Double,' I'm not sure we would have known how to formulate this new initiative so effectively."
An Indiana credit union shared the story of how it rolled the dice a while back and got a quick foreshadowing of the economic times ahead when it offered a "near prime" auto loan program that reached down to C and D paper. It was a little out of the ordinary for the credit union to make the riskier loans, it said, and it estimated that it needed 90% of the subprime borrowers to pay as expected for the promo to be worthwhile. "Well, it didn't turn out like we thought," said the CEO. "Payoffs came in about 50-50. I guess you live and learn, especially in today's economy."
From a credit union in the Pacific Northwest, these four turkeys. "One, that we need two trade associations. Two, that every state needs a league. Three, that there is any legitimacy behind considering a 100% overhead transfer rate. Four, that we can't work together to create a national credit union brand."
At a credit union where I worked previously, the now-retired CEO actually made the following statements during several management meetings. These are not typos. They are actual quotes:
"Wine is OK. But only when used for municipal purposes."
"I'm pleased to announce that we have renewed the contract with our external auditing firm for another three-year stench."
"Costs are getting high. We may need to reduce staff through nutrition."
And, my all-time favorite:
"We'll need to be careful. I'm not sure our board is aware that this report is a copulation of several people."
"We spent a good deal of time and energy developing the campaign for our branches and launched it to dismal results," said a credit union executive in the Northeast. The campaign's lackluster performance resulted because branch employees created their own internal sales campaigns at the same time. "Unfortunately we were not aware of that," the credit union exec told Credit Union Journal. "They ignored our marketing campaign entirely. Suffice it to say, the next time we ran an internal campaign we made sure we were connected and coordinated!"
From the CEO of a West Coast CU: "I can share a prior life 'Turkey' that is so bad no one would really believe this happened. So, here 'tis...
In order to increase loans outstanding and generate higher earnings, CU management was directed to increase members' personal lines of credit simultaneously with a state law that allowed unsecured member debt to increase from $10,000 per member to $20,000 per member. To make it worse, debt-to-income ratios were not considered relevant, since the other brilliance in this strategy was to concurrently lengthen the loan repayment terms so each member's loan payment would stay about the same.
When members lined up for their loan increase the creators of this program were ecstatic over their successful strategy and insight into what was needed. When the loans went bad en masse 18 to 24 months later, the creators developed amnesia and, management was to blame. Sad but true.
We had this great idea of sending out a mailer to new households surrounding one of our newest branches. The mailer was really catchy and featured a giant and colorful sprinkled donut with the headline, "Banking with Extra Sprinkles on Top." We advertised special lobby days with free donuts and coffee...NOT ONE PERSON came! We had been so excited about the mailer, but apparently the low-carb hoopla was working against our super-catchy mailer.
Another one: We usually provide food, drinks, and sometimes special prizes at our yearly Member Appreciation Day and at our monthly educational workshops. Invariably, at least one person at every event complains that our $30 sub tray is cutting into their dividends. This doesn't necessarily stop them from having that turkey-and-cheddar sandwich or cup of coffee, of course, but they always want us to know that they are not happy.
We have a really catchy set of branding commercials, one of which features someone getting an (our CU's name) tattoo and another which showcases an annoying and meddling mother-in-law. While the majority of folks liked these catchy commercials, we had a few really upset viewers who called people who got tattoos "hoodlums" and "up to no good" and our portrayal of our mother-in-law "unfair," since our depiction of a meddlesome mother-in-law was "totally off base." I guess that you can't please everyone!
Finally, we recently had a team-building event at a park for all employees. Our team building turned a little raucous when a spirited round of "Red Rover" broke out and people were so crazy that concussions and bruised limbs quickly replaced the warm fuzzies of the team building. Go figure.
In a small Virginia town, a credit union might as well have used the saying, "Don't come a knockin' if the van is rockin'," when it advertised RV loans a while back.
The CU had recently repossessed an RV and drove it out to the front of its main location and draped a big sign on the vehicle that said: "We finance fun."
"That really bombed," said the CU's marketing manager. "We took a lot of flack and kidding for that. Obviously members were not thinking about the same kind of fun we were, if you get my drift. What were we thinkng?"
Many years ago we were looking to drive membership growth, so we decided to leverage the warm and accessible feel to our brand by executing a "Welcome Home to (CU Name)" campaign.
To bring this campaign to life, our agency set up in-branch tables with china, etc., suggesting a feast or gathering when people "come home" to our CU (print ads and other materials supported the promotion).
To further emphasize this theme, we asked each employee to wear an apron - and because we were concerned about not offending anyone, we went with a Home Depot-type apron so both genders would feel comfortable wearing them. The staff reaction, while normally very supportive, was not positive and very resistant. Then some members made comments to the staff along the lines of "What are you serving today," causing more staff resistance! Yikes!
I don't recall whether the actual results of the promotion revealed that we achieved our growth goals, but the experience was one that this marketer will never forget and it is one I am committed to learning from. A REAL TURKEY!
For many years, I kept that apron on the back of my door - and I still have it somewhere - to remind myself that despite the fact that I have had the good fortune of working for this wonderful organization that has grown from $160 million in assets when I started to $1.8 billion today, I have certainly had my share of "swings and misses" (I gravitate towards baseball analogies for some reason) or turkeys, as you've called them, and I am forever humbled by them. Sure to keep THIS marketer's feet firmly planted on the ground at all times!
"Not that there's anything wrong with nostalgia, but we may have gone a little overboard," said a New Hampshire marketing director. "We asked staff to wear mini-skirts and go-go boots to launch an internal sales campaign. But to top it off, we asked the CEO to wear a really big wig."
The CEO was a good sport, and fortunately no members saw his new look, the marketing director reported. "Not one of our better ideas," she said.
"We created a Visa debit card usage promotion to encourage members to 1) use their debit cards to make purchases and, 2) to swipe and sign when they did so. The prize was an all-expense paid ski vacation. Our member was excited to hear that she had won and stated that she could use a vacation. But when I met with her to take a photo she mentioned that she wanted to give the prize to her ex-husband as a honeymoon gift for his up-coming wedding; things had been a little strained between them and she wanted to make peace by "gifting" him the trip.
She was a little disappointed when she heard that the prize was non-transferable. We were disappointed when she never redeemed her prize.
"From that point on we have made sure that the non-transferable disclaimer is placed in a prominent position on our promotional pieces."
"Our credit union launched a new product this Spring aimed at helping young people get their first personal loan, teaching money management and building a long-term relationship. The 'Prom Loan' was made available in spring to coincide with traditional high school prom schedules and to assist young people with high costs of participation in school prom festivities. Despite the good intentions, there were no takers this year."
"Like everyone, we are working to expand our youth marketing. A while back, we planned a postcard mailing promotion targeting parents whose kids are not already members. We designed the mail piece, worked out the promotion and the staff incentives until someone realized that our MCIF system could only identify those families whose kids WERE already members - we hadn't bought the module with the appropriate demographic information. Needless to say, the program was quickly retooled."
ARVADA, Colo.-Issuing employees tickets for dress code violations is probably not the way to ensure that staffers follow the dress code, if an experiment at Eagle Legacy Credit Union is any indication. A number of years ago, says HR VP Deb Dunning, her credit union put a "Fashion Police" on patrol.
"Dress code has always been a big deal at the credit union," she said. "It is so difficult to stay up with the trends with all the different age groups. We want to portray a business appearance, but also not seem too stuffy and unapproachable." Though it was well meaning, the "police" apparently rubbed more than a few employees the wrong way and caused substantial upheaval.
"Two employees were appointed to ensure staff was in dress code," Dunning explained. "It turned into a big fiasco with many hard and bitter feelings among staff; bad move."
Since the "Fashion Police" debacle, Eagle Legacy CU has since experienced a substantial cultural overhaul, and Dunning sees the institution on the right track when it comes to how employees look."I believe we have finally established our 'niche' in the dress code area," she said.
"How about the fact that the marketing department worked for three months on a 'Relocation of Debt' campaign to get people to refinance with the CU, and then two weeks before we're to launch the effort, the entire project gets canned. Totally canceled, along with all the creative that was designed. Marketing thought the creative materials could at least be used in the new direction, but the "powers" didn't like the look after all, even though they had been included throughout the process."
Reaching out to the next generation of potential credit union members is absolutely critical, and must be done through media that appeal to them such as Facebook and YouTube. But leave that mission to staff members or other marketing personnel that won't be applying for Social Security benefits in a few years, argues one credit union marketing staffer. The marketing staffer said several videos he saw on YouTube of "non Gen-Y (CU employees) trying to speak to Generation Y" about the differences between credit unions and banks left him just shaking his head. "It was just flopping," he said of the videos.
Instead, the staffer suggests that credit unions "find someone in age group to produce that message for you or get a youth group involved" and let the more experienced employees stick to what they know best-running a solid financial institution.
"Don't try to be hip," he warned. "You might actually break one."
I used to work in a Texas credit union. We were having a ground breaking of a new branch that was going to be a complete redesign of a closed fast food restaurant into a branch location.
After cleaning out all the dead bugs from the old restaurant, we set up our ground breaking decorations and décor inside the restaurant overnight, along with some refreshments and drinks for our guests the next day. Because it was in Texas, we used a pair of boots as part of the decoration and we placed nice flowers in them. Overnight someone broke into the closed restaurant through the drive-through window and stole the pair of boots and the flowers. They then helped themselves to a soda and left.
The next day, we looked for someone wearing the boots around that part of town but never had any luck. However, the ground breaking was a great success!
