Credit unions plan to launch a national advertising campaign here Thursday that paints a Scrooge-like image of banks.
"Now the big banks that charge higher loan rates and high ATM fees want to take away your right to join a credit union," one ad says. It encourages viewers to call a toll-free hot line and "say no to the big banks, take a stand for America's consumers."
The credit union trade associations are buying time on CNN and Headline News, nationwide media, and on the Fox TV affiliate and a news radio station here. Spokesmen for the groups would not disclose the budget for these ads, but a source involved in the campaign said it is nearly $2 million.
In addition, print ads will appear in The Washington Post and Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper. State credit union leagues will be asked to place the print and broadcast ads in their local markets.
The spots, which will run Sept. 4-18 and again Oct. 2-16, are timed to coincide with the return of lawmakers from their August break and the Oct. 6 Supreme Court oral argument in the AT&T Family Federal Credit Union case.
In 1990 five North Carolina banks and the American Bankers Association sued AT&T Family-which serves employees at more than 150 unrelated companies-arguing that members of occupation-based credit unions must share a single common bond. A federal appeals court agreed, prompting credit union leaders to lobby lawmakers for a legislative solution.
The ad campaign is meant to get lawmakers' attention and raise public awareness, said Kenneth L. Robinson, president of the National Association of Federal Credit Unions, which is spearheading the campaign along with the Credit Union National Association.
"We want to reemphasize to the members of Congress as they return and get back to work that this is an issue of national importance and it needs their immediate attention," Mr. Robinson said.
In one ad, several consumers complain that banks rejected their loan applications to cover medical and education bills. "Their rates were too high," one says. "We couldn't get a loan," says another.
But then, they say, they joined credit unions. "They were there when we needed them," says a mother as she gives her baby its bottle.
The credit union ads use unfair stereotypes of banks and could "really backfire on them," ABA spokeswoman Virginia S. McGuire responded.
"Running these ads is only going to call attention to their outdated tax and regulatory treatment and really give us more opportunity to raise these questions on the Hill," she said.
The ABA, which is preparing a nationwide ad campaign to improve the banking industry's image, has not decided whether to respond with anti- credit union ads, she added.u
