SEATTLE – In a highly imaginative weekly online ad series featuring movie star and Washington native Carl Weathers (Rocky’s Apollo Creed), viewers are told “Change is Beautiful,” but the actor never utters the words “credit union.”
Instead, the non-descript online ads, which were linked from numerous websites, simply were credited to Credit Unions of Washington.
The viral ads – so-called because they are meant to be passed along from person to person – are part of a multi-media campaign undertaken by the Washington CU League and 20 of its credit unions. The campaign 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,” Walters told The Credit Union Journal, of the multi-year ad campaign.
The Change is Beautiful viral ads are part of the larger “Change is Calling” campaign, which aims at introducing credit unions as an alternative to banks. The Carl Weathers spots, which can be viewed at
“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, a local shop that designed the ads.
“The viral effect,” he said, “is to try and attract people who I would call more apathetic to the whole issue.”
“The whole idea is to put out a nice positive message kind of quickly and they might appreciate that,” said Grant.
The $1 million campaign will be supplemented this fall with a new TV spot and with additional commercials in the future.
The campaign is targeted mostly at women between the ages of 24 and 39, because market research indicates those are the people who manage finances for families or small business, and who are also more apt to make a switch to a credit union, according to Walters. “We’re trying to raise the level of awareness so that people realize they can use a credit union and a bank,” she said.
Participating credit unions include: BECU, TAPCO CU, Qualstar CU, Seattle Metropolitan CU, Group Health CU, Sound CU, Verity CU, Our Community CU, School Employees CU of Washington, Watermark CU, Evergreen CU, America’s CU and Woodstone CU, among others.
The campaign is proving so popular that credit unions in other states have contacted CUs of Washington about adopting it for their own use, said Walters.
