EL PASO, Texas-El Paso Employees FCU has evolved.
Now rebranded as Evolve FCU, it is making a major push to ingratiate itself to the city's budding arts community.
The credit union is sponsoring both an art show (which ran through February) and a film festival, which will run later this spring (submissions are still being accepted). Social Communication Specialist Elisa Terrazas-Arce explained that "there's a really large art culture that's growing here in El Paso, and a lot of students at the university really embrace what we're trying to do with our name, and they've been ... more than willing to participate."
Terrazas-Arce conceded that Austin is usually the first place people think of when it comes to arts communities in Texas, but said that the last three to five years have seen "a recent push to get El Paso to replicate some of what's going on in Austin."
Both festivals ask participants to depict their own vision of evolution, and despite a potentially controversial topic, Terrazas-Arce said that the response has been positive.
"We only got one piece of negative feedback, and that was from somebody who wrote to us and made a comment about the name Evolve and that they didn't like it," she said. "They didn't really say anything about evolution and the art show itself. That's really been the only negative comment we've had, which kind of surprised me. I'm glad though."
Along with the name change, Evolve has shifted its priorities to focus on attracting consumers between the ages of 18 and 35 years old. "I think that by hosting the types of events that interest them, we're showing them that we not only want their business, but we care about what they care about," said Terrazas-Arce. "We have seen a lot of the younger people in our community approach us when we're out doing promotions and letting us know that they've noticed the change in our credit union and that we've been putting ourselves out here and sponsoring events they care about."
The goal, she said, is to lay the groundwork for the future and attract Gen Y and Millennial members when they're young, so that the credit union will be top of mind later when those members need loans. Terrazas-Arce did not have specific statistics on how many of the CU's 45,000 members fit into that demographic, but said that Evolve's average member is between the ages of 45 and 47 years old.
Evolution in Product Line
Terrazas-Arce said that ECU's product line and outreach efforts have also evolved. The credit union has implemented mobile banking and e-checking to appeal to younger members, and is using Facebook and Twitter to market itself. But the social media strategy is still lagging: As of early March, Evolve FCU's Facebook page had only 68 "Likes" compared to more than 400 for the old El Paso Employees FCU page.
The two festivals are part of a long-term campaign that seeks to build awareness of its new name and its presence in the community. There are no prizes for the art in the festival, although there is no fee for participants to submit their works and the credit union does not take any portion of the proceeds from sales. The winner of the film festival will receive a GoPro HD Camera.
The festivals are being held at the CU's main branch, all the marketing is being done in-house, and the only significant expense to the CU is the cost of catering the opening night festivities.
"We're just trying to put our name out there to that target audience and let them know who we are," said Terrazas-Arce.
