WASHINGTON — In an effort to reach young Capital Hill staffers, CUNA last week released a video featuring the updated "Little Guy" first introduced just before this year's Government Affairs Conference.
CUNA representative Pat Keefe said the 3:21 video "
In a combined effort to be entertaining, a little bit different and ride the wave of YouTube.com's huge popularity with the younger generation, Keefe said CUNA wanted to avoid a typical "piggy bank ad" in a newspaper or magazine. The video's main focus is to combat the banking industry's opposition to a proposed CURIA section that would increase CU business loans from 12.25% to 20%.
"It's part of the program to change the conversation on Capital Hill," Keefe said. "That's probably the number one complaint among bankers. We want to hit them head on with this."
The CUNA video is the latest posting on YouTube among individual credit unions and state leagues.
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Keefe said the idea of using the Little Guy on YouTube is less than a month old and was created with Georgetown ad agency GMMB. With the young average age of Hill staffers, Keefe said normal print ads in the Congressional Record or in The Hill might get lost in the clutter of ads, mailers and letters that Congress receives.
"We thought this would be a quicker way and a lot more entertaining," he said.
Keefe said another reason to run video on YouTube is the instant feedback as account owners can read the number of views by the public.
Keefe said the video has gotten roughly 2,300 views so far, with positive feedback from the Hill, with one member of Congress telephoning with a supportive comment.
A few comments by YouTube viewers weren't as positive with one poster writing "nothing but propoganda (sic) for another 'special interest'" and another stating that "CUs are no more willing/unwilling than a regular bank to lend money."
Keefe said CUNA is establishing other methods of tracking and reviewing the Little Guy video, but declined to describe what they were.
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