RANCHO CUCAMONA, Calif. -- CO-OP Financial Services, the credit union-owned electronic funds network, is running print ads in some of the nation’s most widely read publications urging bank customers to transfer to a credit union.
A series of humorous pieces with the tagline “Banks Don’t Like You. Credit Unions Do” are running in advance of Saturday’s Bank Transfer Day in New York’s The Village Voice, Los Angeles Weekly, Orange County Weekly, Chicago Reader, San Francisco Weekly, Boston Dig, Atlanta Creative Loafing and Washington D.C.’s The City Paper.
Print ads for the campaign say: “Banks Said the Glass Was Half-Empty, Then Drank It.” Or “Banks Ignored Your Friend Request.”
Each ad concludes, “Banks Don’t Like You. Credit Unions Do.” As the print ads run, the campaign’s Twitter page will be tweeting:
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“This unique campaign was designed for young adults in the 21- to 34-years-old range, who we believe are most open to switching from a bank or who are looking for their first primary financial institution,” said Caroline Lane, senior vice president, business development and marketing, for CO-OP, which is owned by credit unions and provides electronic funds services for more than 1,500 credit unions. “This led us to take a subtle humor approach, and engage the audience with ads placed in ‘alternative’ metro newsmagazines and social media.”
The launch of the ad campaign comes as new figures released this morning by CUNA show an estimated 650,000 consumers have fled their banks for a credit union since Sept. 29 when Bank of America announced a $5 a month debit fee, since retracted.
All of the ads and additional campaign literature can be found on the Facebook page: www.facebook.com/banksdontlikeu
Consumers can also follow the campaign on Twitter: http://twitter.com/BanksDontLikeU
