SEATTLE - In a highly imaginative weekly online ad series featuring movie star and Washington native Carl Weathers–who played “Apollo Creed” in the “Rocky” movie franchise–viewers are told “Change is Beautiful.” But the actor never utters the words or name of the sponsors of the campaign: “credit union.”
Instead, the quirky online ads that offer inspirational messages are linked to numerous websites, and include a simple credit in the bottom right-hand corner to Credit Unions of Washington. A link there, which reads “click here for more beauty” takes the visitor to www.discovercreditunions.com, which is devoted to teaching consumers about the “beauty” of credit union membership.
The viral ads–so-called because they are meant to grow on viewers and inspire them to share them with others–are part of a multi-media campaign undertaken by the Washington CU League and 20 of its credit unions that includes eight weeks of prime time commercials on statewide television and radio spots, according to Kristina Walters, head of marketing at Washington State Employees CU and a member of the CUs of Washington steering committee.
The ads are meant to spread awareness of credit unions in a non-overt way. “Something that gets spread around organically,” said Walters, of the multi-year ad campaign.
An Infectious Smile
In the series, Weathers is usually shown riding a bike attached to a flower cart, and he suprises an office worker, a diner and others with his own infectious smile–one easily recognized by movie-goers all across the country. Weathers, who has business interests in Washington state, agreed to do the spots because of their quirkiness. Viewers can link to the ad from a variety of sites, such as the Seattle Times newspaper.
The Change is Beautiful viral ads are part of a larger “Change is Calling” campaign that aims to introduce credit unions as an alternative to banks. The Carl Weathers spots, at www.changeisbeautiful.net, are linked to the commercial that ran on the ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox networks’ prime time shows, including “Dancing With the Stars,” “Survivor,” and “The Bachelorette.” The commercial features drivers stuck at a four-way intersection, with only the credit union member “getting it” and allowing the other motorists to proceed on through.
“We’re trying to stir the pot a bit, to make people realize that they don’t have to bank at a bank,” said Bill Grant, president of Big Bang Seattle, the local shop that designed the ads. The agency has also designed campaigns for Fox Sports Network, Electra Bikes and Brooks running shoes.
‘Real World’ Stories
The discovercreditunions.com website features “real world” stories told by actual credit union members about why they love their credit union, as well as an explanation of how credit unions are different from banks and a search engine that allows a visitor to find credit unions he or she is eligible to join.
The campaign is not funded by Washington CU League dues. “We sent fundraising letters to every credit union in the state,” Walters explained. “Some contribute one year but not the next, some contribute every year. There are about 15 core contributors.”
Those contributors make up the Credit Unions of Washington, the group that has been putting together statewide awareness campaigns for the last three years, starting with the Super Bowl ad buy in 2005.
Because a portion of the costs for the most recent campaign were “blended” with the costs for last year’s campaign, Walters said she couldn’t specify the 2008 expenditure, but approximately $900,000 has been spent over the past two years. Of that, only about $50,000 went toward the viral portion of the campaign, as opposed to the television commercial.
“The viral is much less expensive,” she offered. “And it’s amazing because it gets so much more attention.” To measure the success of the integrated campaigns, an awareness survey conducted before launch is being used as a benchmark against which post-campaign survey results can be compared.
But there are other results the group has already seen. “The viral website had 5,500 hits after the first two weeks, and we’re up to about 7,000 now,” Walters observed. “And when people get to the site, they’re spending an average of two-and-a-half minutes at the site, which is longer than we expected. We’re also tracking who came through the viral campaign versus who came through the TV ad.”
The end game: drive membership growth, which is tougher to measure. “We are tying to gather member growth numbers from credit unions across the state, and most credit unions ask new members, ‘How did you learn about us,’ ” she related. “If they say TV, then it’s a good bet they found out about the credit union because of us, because right now BECU is the only other one doing TV right now.”(c) 2008 The Credit Union Journal and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved.http://www.cujournal.com http://www.sourcemedia.com
