SAN FRANCISCO–With its “Open Your Eyes to a Credit Union” brand message officially unveiled, members of the CUNA National Brand Awareness initiative steering committee are now sharing additional details on what it has planned for the future–including how media placements will be paid for.
The theme of the campaign was unveiled recently at CUNA’s GAC just two weeks ago and follows two years of research and testing, as CUToday.info reported here.
While work remains to be done, the campaign and its messaging are getting closer to going into the market, and attendees at the CUNA Marketing & Business Development Council annual meeting here–many of whom will be responsible for how they implement the campaign and its components–were given an introduction and an update to the “Open Your Eyes to a Credit Union” initiative.
As Graeme Traynor, managing director of the research firm Insight GPG told the meeting, “We need people to have a very quick reaction when they hear the words ‘credit union.’ This is about saliency in a very crowded market.”
Douglas Kiker, chief communications officer with CUNA, ran attendees an overview of what the research found really resonated with the focus groups, which is, “We want to present and project an image of lifestyles and people that other people want to be. In America, we like to dream, bigger, brighter and always better, for ourselves or for our loved ones.”
Possible Mistake
Kiker said that calling the effort an “awareness initiative” may have been a mistake, as it turns out most consumers surveyed understand a credit union is a financial institution.
“So, what we have now is a consideration problem; 66% of people know what we are but still aren’t using us,” he said.
To illustrate that point, Traynor pointed to an image of a pie with a slice missing that he said really summed up what was often expressed in the research.
“The piece of the pie graphic is a most powerful metaphor,” he said. “It says, ‘When you join the credit a credit union, you get a piece of the pie. You benefit.’”
So, what should credit unions be doing now with the awareness initiative and its findings? Kiker urged credit unions to go to www.awareness.creditunion (the password is openyoureyes) to download the Messaging Guide. `
“It is not short. It’s 60 pages. It is something to print out, get a Hi-Liter, and dig into,” he said. “It impacts more than comms and marketing. We talked to some people about how it might change the layout of their branches. This is the now. This is what everyone can start looking at to get a sense of how we can perhaps all sing out of the same songbook. It may not be the same song, but the same songbook. It’s not prescriptive. It’s ‘Do this, and here’s why,’ and if you want to convey messages, here’s a more effective way to do so.”
Moving forward, credit unions should use the research findings to build marketing that combats myths (misconceptions over who can join and the limited scale nationally of CUs) to help raise consideration of the credit union category nationwide, said Kiker.
“We want to broaden the group of people taking advantage of their current membership. They need to be inspired to help us to open people’s eyes to credit unions,” he said. “We also need to ask what can we do to inspire the 280,000 people who work for credit unions in the U.S.”
Not To Replace Marketing
Kiker stressed the awareness initiative is not intended to replace any individual CUs’ marketing efforts.
“This is to supplement and make those campaigns and language more effective,” he said. “This is to get consumers to your door, and then you open the door to get them to come in.”
Kiker said 2018 is still a “ramp up” year and not a “jump off,” and he asked for patience. He said in 2018 there will be four to five regional launches of the “Open Your Eyes” campaign with select partners that he did not identify. The goal will be to achieve diversity in terms of geography, audience, baseline consideration, channel and competition, he said.
In 2019, there will be regional and national campaigns, he said.
“We really think that localization will be a huge key to success in this,” he said. “People want to see images of the lives they want to lead. They want to see images of aspiration, where they want to take themselves and their families. So, it’s important that when people see these they see themselves.”
Younger consumers and parents age 35-50 will be key targets.
Principles of Media Approach
The principles of the media approach, Kiker said, are:
- Activate: Focus on activation and execution, data driven, iterative and agile process to learn and improve.
- Adapt. Iterate creative ideas. Use local insight to tailor this foundation for local market.
- Collaboration. Sharing of data and information and co-creation of materials.
When an audience member asked how the CU initiative will be different from the dairy industry’s “Got Milk” campaign, which raised awareness yet consumption declined considerably, Michelle Hunter, a committee member and VP of marketing at Credit Union of Southern California said, “The reality is it’s about putting us in a consideration set. The job isn’t to drive business per se; that’s (marketers’) job. The goal is to be a player. Our marketing objectives need to dovetail with the national. This should help us to overcome that barrier of misconceptions. It’s about getting one step closer to opening those accounts.”
A website, YourMoneyFurther.com, is under development and will include tools for finding a CU to join.
Media Buys
How will the media buys be paid for?
According to Kiker, plans call for “utilizing existing assets” that credit unions and leagues are already using. He said there will also be a need for “investments from business partners and others.”
“There are two words in our mission statement about this and that is to be sustainable and ongoing,” said Kiker. “We will need investment from credit unions and others. CUNA simply doesn’t have the money for a national campaign. I’m optimistic with reason that credit unions and leagues will get involved when they see the value. This is an investment in growing your business.”