ACUC Day 3: All About Advocacy, Awareness
June 29, 2016 4:00 PM
SEATTLE A new awareness initiative introduced Tuesday at the Credit Union National Association's America's Credit Union Conference set the stage for a focus on advocacy at the third day of CUNA's annual meeting on Wednesday.
Rod Staatz, president and CEO of SECU of Maryland, CUNA board chair and chairman of the trade group's advocacy committee, said advocacy remains the biggest single focus at CUNA. "We also educate on timely topics, but at the end of the day, advocacy is the No. 1 job," he declared. "Know that 100% of your dues dollars are focused on advocacy. Our success in advocacy is due and will be due to all of us working together leagues, CUNA and, when necessary, members. We are America's credit unions, and we need to get the word out."
Staatz praised the new chairman of NCUA, saying when CUNA talks about advocacy, its leaders are "really glad" Rick Metsger is there. "He is trying really hard to do his job as regulator and work with credit unions. Jim [Nussle, CUNA's president and CEO] and Ryan [Donovan, chief advocacy officer] are really good, but it is going to take more than Jim and Ryan. It is going to take all of us. We need to make sure banks don't continue to define who we are. We need to make sure banks don't continue to set the agenda. There are many things our members want, but we are limited. We need to remove those barriers. All of you need to develop relationships with your Congressmen and Senators. You have to tell our story it will make a difference. We need to tell everyone about the uniqueness. Make sure everyone knows how good we are to our members. We want credit unions to grow, because that helps more and more households."
Teresa Freeborn, chairwoman of CUNA's Awareness Advisory Group and president/CEO of Xceed Financial CU, El Segundo, Calif., said the Awareness Advisory Group was charged with closing the awareness gap consumers have toward CUs. "The implications of the awareness gap are very real it affects our market share," she said. "We in the credit union movement are no strangers to awareness campaigns. We are very grateful for all of those efforts that have come before, but these individual efforts are not enough to address the national awareness problem we have today. We need to go above and beyond what has gone before."
The Awareness Initiative is not an advertising campaign, Freeborn stressed. "It will put leagues and credit unions in the driver's seat and provide empirically tested methods. There will be a networked approach because credit unions working together are exponentially stronger."
Douglas Kiker, CUNA's chief strategic communications officer, said two CUNA researchers, compiled 16 years of national and statewide polling, focus groups and surveys, of both members and non-members. "Now is the time to start telling the credit union story," Kiker said. "We have an incredible opportunity. Forty percent of non-members do not know they are allowed to join a credit union. One in three millennials cannot identify a credit union as a financial institution."
The 16 years of research have yielded four messages that resonate with consumers. Kiker said 89% of those we polled responded positively to these: 1. CUs are different from banks, 2. Credit unions are non-profit, unlike Wall Street, 3. Credit unions are member-owned, like Main Street, and, 4. Credit unions return earnings to members with lower fees and higher interest on savings.
"After hearing these messages, 82% of bank-only customers say they are interested in moving one or more accounts to credit unions," Kiker said. "We cannot wait. There has never been a better time to move non-members to credit unions, and get non-PFI members to engage more with us. The average age of a credit union member is 48.5 years old, while just 7% of members are 18 to 24."
Patrick Dorton, partner in Washington, D.C.-based consultancy Rational 360, has been part of the team working on the Awareness Initiative for the past year. On Tuesday he told ACUC attendees everyone involved in CUs needs to talk more about the credit union difference. "We need to unify all the voices. We need to be unified and talking the same way about the credit union difference. If we use the four messages it affects people. The Credit Union Awareness Initiative is a first step. Let's arm the ambassadors with the right words to talk about the credit union difference."
Vanessa Descalzi, director with Rational 360, said the initiative will support existing efforts and get everyone aligned with the four messages. "Part of the initiative is a digital engagement and mobilization toolkit. You might think this is nothing new, that your credit union is already doing it that is because we are borrowing from you," she explained.
In Phase I, Step 1, employee ambassadors are "activated."
Step 2: release of the digital engagement and mobilization toolkit. Descalzi said because 90% of millennials are on social media, the toolkit will include social media tips and strategy, weekly shareable graphics for social platforms, and timely content to post on each platform. She said it will result in digital amplification of top content via social media awareness in key areas, profile and background pictures for Facebook and Twitter; and, weekly credit union highlight e-mails.
Step 3: creation of an awareness best practices analysis and hub a way to share ideas. "We know you all are the experts, but you need to be connected so you can work together," said Descalzi. "The hub will include media templates, e-mails, social media language and images. The hub will serve as a learning site."
Phase II of the awareness initiative will include additional toolkit elements, such as a state-by-state financial influencer database, financial scorecards, a regional earned media program and creative activations, Dorton explained. "After everyone is connected, it will be time to break through and reach more consumers," he said. Added Descalzi, "Credit unions already compile reports about how much they return to members, the toolkit will help add extra dimensions of local messaging to share with local media. People love to hear stories."
Phase III will be known as "sustain and measure." According to Dorton, "We will realize the fruits of our sustained labor with transparent measurements of new members and greater wallet share." The Awareness Initiative is a partnership effort. CU stakeholders are invited to send questions and suggestions to:
"We need to tell our story," said Dorton. "Tell about the credit union difference locally, regionally and nationally."
Charlene Li, founder of and principal analyst for the consultancy Altimeter Group, told attendees leadership is all about relationships. "Disruption is an overused word, but it drives exponential growth," she said. "It is about doing things differently. Disruptions come in three types: new products that shift market share, new business models that shift ecosystems and new brands that shift loyalties. Disruptions shift power in relationships, which leads to growth.
How could CUs disrupt the entire financial services system? Li said they need to create a strategy around member obsession. "Obsess about your members and what they need. Create an organization that obsesses about members. It will look different at every credit union."
According to Li, an engaged leader is someone who uses digital, mobile and social tools strategically to achieve established goals as they relate to leading people and managing organizations. She noted Red Robin restaurants set up a system of listening to customers via employees. They asked the servers on the front line to tell upper management what is really going on. This allowed the restaurant to address deficiencies in 30 days, rather than a year or more. "Listen, share and engage," Li said.
Hope Schau, Filene Fellow and professor of marketing at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Ariz., told credit unions can tap into their original roots to succeed in a changing economy while attracting more millennial members.
Although millennials get a lot of bad press, Schau said they are on track to be the most educated generation to date, as defined by completing at least a bachelor's degree at ages 18-33. They carry a lot of student debt, their unemployment rate is high, and for those that are employed, they do not have job certainty they do not know if their job will exist from one moment to another. Because of these factors, Schau said millennials have rekindled the former tradition of an extended family which she said was common in America before World War II and remains the dominant form of family worldwide. These millennials living in their parents' homes after they have graduated from college sometimes are referred to as "kidults."
The opportunity, Schau said, comes from the "access economy," a global movement away from private, traditional ownership toward collaborative, collective consumption, or sharing. Examples include airbnb, Uber, Lyft, LiquidSpace and Share Desk. "Credit unions are the pioneers of the P2P collaborative financial model," she said. "They are non-exploitive, pro-social and trusted partners. If credit unions embrace and publicize the original credit union mission, they can face the threat and opportunity of P2P lending organizations."
CUs need to prepare for delayed milestones and create "kidult" milestones, Schau suggested, along with reviewing "family" requirements in financial instruments to account for non-traditional families and living arrangements. Possible new products: family fleet cars, "Framily" college funds and loans (friends and family networks), member-funded business ownership and development, and shared services.
"Collaborative consumption is a reality it is not scary, weird or unusual," Schau said. "Ownership models are being challenged. Access economies are emerging. Credit unions, as inherently collective, trusted financial partners, are poised to take on new access models."
