By Frank J. Diekmann
We were practically sprinting down a stairway inside a hotel in San Francisco when we reached the point where the stairs pivot to turn 180 degrees in the other direction. I was maybe two steps behind Richard Hartley when he stopped so quickly I nearly crashed into him. He turned, his face red and serious, and he poked me in the chest with his index finger.
“I’ll be damned if this is happening on my watch,” he said firmly, and then he turned again and kept descending.
And thus, the CUNA Councils were born.
Today, there are seven CUNA Councils representing more than 7,000 executives across disciplines that include not just marketers, but CFOs, lenders, human resources professionals, operations and member experience, technology and, most recently, CEOs.
But it all started with one person whose pride had been wounded and who vowed he would do his job—even when the job didn’t exist any longer.
What was happening on Hartley’s watch a quarter-century ago was the Credit Union Executives Society had stunned several-hundred CU folk meeting in that same hotel with an announcement that it planned to discontinue support for a formal CUES subgroup of credit union marketers.
The Big Surprise
Right up until it held a press conference, few people knew what was about to be announced. (What I will always remember is when CUES announced its press conference, I responded that I had an interview conflict and couldn’t make it. CUES said it planned to proceed anyway, even though I was the only press there, so it was going to be a press conference with no press. They eventually relented and rescheduled.)
What then CUES President Fred Johnson announced was the association would be refocusing its mission on professional development–which has proven in the decades since to be a wise move for a society of professionals that prior to Johnson’s arrival didn’t really seem to be about any one thing.
The announcement blindsided the marketing group, which was chaired by Hartley. At the time Hartley was a VP with Mission Federal Credit Union in San Diego, and by coincidence several years earlier also happened to be the first person in CUs I had ever interviewed when what I knew about credit unions wouldn’t fill Filene’s fedora.
Steaming Ears, Steaming Rice
It was immediately after that press conference I found myself chasing after Hartley and could almost see the steam from his ears as we raced down that stairwell. Hartley vowed he wouldn’t leave the marketers in a lurch, and over the following months he shared with me all the solutions he was exploring for the suddenly homeless marketers.
There was talk of creating a standalone association of marketers, but if you think the average marketer doesn’t have much of a budget today, imagine more than 25 years ago when marketers met in San Francisco because it was home to dinner they ate most often: Rice-A-Roni. (And this week the Marketing Council is headed back to San Francisco to mark the anniversary.)
Eventually, Hartley met with CUNA about taking in the profession’s refugees. At the time, CUNA’s finances weren’t in much better shape than marketers’, and I still recall Hartley telling me the trade group had agreed to allow its name to be used and to provide “support,” but the group would not be providing any money. (So, maybe not all that much has changed in that regard in 25 years.)
Credit unions have certainly changed, however, and if there is one discipline within credit unions that is the weather vane for how the community has developed and grown, it is marketing.
No More Typewriters
For much of credit union history, “marketing” was about as sophisticated as a typewritten monthly newsletter and a two-color sign (and only if you could splurge on that second color) at the teller window. “Marketers” and “marketing” fell to whomever drew the short straw, and could be anyone from the CEO to a branch manager to a teller.
Of course, for much of credit union history the average CU didn’t need to be anything more than average at marketing. Just about every CU had a closed or limited FOM, and all the marketing that needed to be done could be taken care of right there at the sponsor company’s new employee orientation.
The marketing function within credit unions has been the embodiment of the classic Catch-22: We’ll spend more on marketing after we grow, and we’ll grow after we spend more on marketing. It’s no coincidence that most of the CUs that have grown fastest over the past 25 years have been those that put some serious dollars into marketing, recognizing it’s a senior management position and a function that must be interwoven throughout the enterprise.
A Front-Row Seat
One of the experiences I’ve enjoyed most has been to be a judge over the years in the CUES Golden Mirror Awards and the CUNA Marketing Council Diamond Awards. It’s been like having a front row seat to evolution. There was a time when a CU would win an award just for having the audacity to produce a TV commercial, regardless of how amateurish and appalling and “I-can-only-watch-this-with-one-eye-open-and-that-one’s-squinting” it might be. Today in marketing competitions we see dozens of professionally produced, network quality TV spots (and now online videos) that can be emotional and funny and effective (you’ll can find more than 500 in CUToday.info’s The Vids here).
(BTW, one thing that hasn’t changed over all those years is “Marketer Math.” I’m not sure how many times I’ve read something like this on a marketing competition entry form: “Our goal was a 5% increase, we actually had a 10% increase, therefore we exceeded goal by 5%.” Sure, go ahead and undersell yourself; I’d like to be a fly on the wall at review time.)
Perhaps nothing illustrates better how the marketing role within CUs has grown more than the fact what was originally the CUNA Marketing Council is now the Marketing and Business Development Council.
Which seems fitting, since it’s all due to one marketer who poured his passion into doing some business development of his own.
Frank J. Diekmann is Cooperator in Chief at CUToday.info and can be reached at Frank@CUToday.info or @FrankCUToday.