By Frank J. Diekmann
In the 2006 movie Click, Adam Sandler plays Michael Newman, a harried husband who is pressed for time with his family. I’ll skip the plot points (it’s an Adam Sandler movie), but Sandler/Newman is given a universal remote control that allows him to control time (ironically, you can use an actual remote to fast forward through this film).
I wished very much last week that I could have borrowed that remote to hit the pause button at a credit union meeting, stop time, and ask an audience of a few hundred people if they actually heard what had just been said. And then rewind it so the speaker could say it again. And again. And then maybe credit unions would get it.
An unknown five years ago, Airbnb has become the largest “hotel” brand in the world, except it isn’t a hotel at all—or even about finding a place to stay. It has a slick, easy-to-use website—except it isn’t about online functionality. It has the kind of cool office space we all want to work in (it has even recreated offices based on properties available through Airbnb)—except it isn’t about an office space.
Let’s let its creative director, Andrew Schapiro, explain it what it’s all about.
“It all started with listening to one of our users,” said Schapiro. “The reality here is our community makes us better. Community is part of our DNA. We realized that our community, these people, are our product. It’s not the website.”
Go ahead, grab your mental clicker and rewind that last paragraph.
Schapiro’s remarks came during the CUNA Marketing and Business Development Council’s annual meeting in Anaheim where, I trust you won’t be shocked, there was much discussion of how to market credit union products and services, how to develop new business and—this must be a new NCUA regulatory requirement for CU meetings—how to tell the “credit union story.”
As was made clear by Schapiro and Airbnb, which is one of the most successful brands in the “sharing economy,” it isn’t about the checking accounts and the auto loans or that redesigned, mobile-enabled website. It’s about that one thing credit unions have that competitors selling the same commodity products don’t—the community.
If anyone still didn’t get it, Schapiro added, “You guys have this secret weapon in your back pocket in which you have these communities of people who are engaged in what you are doing and are passionate about it. Maybe it’s about talking to the people you see every week.”
Apparently the credit union secret weapon is secret from CUs themselves. After Schapiro finished sharing his insights, I heard two marketers in the same session room talking about whether to use “customer” or “member.” Talk about wanting to throw the remote at someone…
You can find full coverage of Schapiro’s presentation here.
Once More, With More Feeling
- For those for whom being hit upside the head once isn’t enough, another speaker at the CUNA Council meeting essentially offered a rewind of Schapiro’s observations. Dana DiTomaso, a partner with Kick Point in Edmonton, Alberta, offered this take: “You can think of ways to make that credit union the heart of the community and brand it that way. These are people who care about you; there is this separation between a bank and a credit union. I think those kinds of stories are easy to tell, but also easy to overlook when you are on top of them every day. People think they’re cool, but you don’t.”
Morsels From Johnny Cupcakes
Here are some other notes out of the CUNA Marketing and BD Council meeting:
- Johnny Earle, better known as Johnny Cupcakes, the proprietor behind the clothing brand that has retail stores that look and smell like bakeries but which sell no cupcakes, may be the first person to ever tell credit unions, “It’s important to reinvest in your brand. I did by investing in itching powder and fart bombs.”
- Earle told credit union execs they were never to old to learn or be an intern or job shadow. “You can do it at another credit union. Or go have coffee with someone. Or go and meet with someone in a totally different business,” he recommended. “I like to say ‘Go meet strangers, unless they drive a white van.’”
- Earle is a big proponent of the value of the personal touch. “If you send a handwritten note, that really differentiates. If it’s an email, most people think of it as something you sent to a bunch of of other people.”
- Johnny Cupcakes has a robust online sales presence. “When people buy things online it’s not as painful to see money leave your hand. Raise your hand if you ever bought something extra online because you told yourself, ‘Well, I’m already paying for shipping.’”
- You can find coverage of the very interesting Johnny Cupcakes’ story here.
- Awards & Groundhogs
Some other notes and observations from the Marketing and BD Conference.
- I had the opportunity to be a judge in the Council’s Diamond Awards. There was a lot of great work done, with some terrific creative and fresh approaches to what isn’t the sexiest of subject matter. It’s especially enjoyable to find some small and midsize CUs—perhaps because they have to take a chance—doing work that’s comparable to and even better than large credit unions that can afford an agency.
- Having covered the Marketing Council since its inception, I have to admit it occasionally (OK, often) has a Groundhog Day feel to it. This is mostly due to the turnover among credit union marketers, and why every year it can be déjà vu all over again with discussions and questions around on-site visits, events, and incentives.
- Speaking of which, while credit unions are often active in community events, it was recognized that a lot of employees don’t want to do them. One marketing VP’s advice: “Ask them, ‘What do you do for a living?’ You have to take those people on as a project. Maybe they have never had to do it since they were hired on 325 years ago.”
- Observed by one CEO at the meeting: “If the average age of your membership is over 50, you probably have as many members dying every month as you are bringing in each month.”
- The trendy credit union sponsorship seems to be food trucks—not just vans that look like food trucks and which serve up a “menu” of financial products, but actual food trucks.
- I was glad to see White Crown CU in Denver win the $10K prize for their Big Idea “pitch” for a bicycle loan program they intend to expand. They were the smallest of the three CUs vying for the funds. Looking forward to seeing how that rolls out. Get it!
- You’ve likely seen Snickers’ “You’re not you when you’re hungry campaign.” One exec with Google shared that in a great example of integrated marketing, Snickers used Google’s AdWords to purchase misspelled words, next to which the ad at right would appear.
- At a business development meeting, there is often a misplaced focus on bringing in as much business as you can (and for which many marketers are incented). But Dana DiTomaso cautioned, “It’s easy to get caught in the trap that you want everybody as your customer; but not every customer is for you.”
Overcoming Fear; Let’s Do Some Surgery
- Something to keep in mind as you introduce a new technology or wonder why the adoption curve is flat. “A lot of companies have done research on this: how do you get people to adopt technologies they won’t adopt?” said Jose Resendiz, general manager with Digital insight in Redwood City, Calif. “And time and time again it comes down to people being afraid of making a mistake that might cause them to lose their money. The second thing is concern around technology. You want to take advantage of the early adopters to tell the story. And if you pair that up with some sort of concierge function, it adds the hand-holding to help people to get through it. We’ve seen this at the branches with interactive video tellers. We’ve seen it with older generations who get upset when finding out there’s no teller. But once they go through the process they leave extremely proud. But it takes being curious about it and overcoming fear of making a mistake.”
- John Best of Best Innovation Group told the meeting, “I think one of the biggest challenges we have in a country is the next generation with financial literacy. My generation has raised a group of people who are not savers. I see many banks in poor and rural areas that are obviously living off fees. I think using video and technology to address things like that, to encourage better habits, will allow people to see that and it will be useful.”
- Later Best added, “I think my son would attempt surgery on a friend if there were enough how-to videos.”
- Finally, speaking of how-to videos, Maxwell Luthy of Trendwatching.com (Luthy offered CUs six trends they should be watching here), said that more than 100 million hours of how-to videos were uploaded to YouTube in the first half of 2015 alone. And what was the most searched how-to video? How to kiss.
Frank J. Diekmann is Cooperator in Chief at CUToday.info and can be reached at Frank@CUToday.info and followed @FrankCUToday.