Nexus Connection

A Reminder of the Importance of Switch Kits

By Lisa Hochgraf

Last week on vacation in Tallahassee, my brother-in-law read an article about the value and power of cooperatives. He got to thinking--and to talking to me--about the idea of switching from his shareholder-owned bank to a member-owned financial institution--a credit union.

Of course I was all for it, but my sister introduced the reality of the situation. "Are you going to manage all the details of such a change?" she asked her husband. "Bill pay, cards, and direct deposit are all associated with that account."

Fortunately, I was able to tell them that some credit unions have "switch kits" or some process in place to make it easy to convert from a bank to a member of that credit union.

We haven't covered switch kits for a while, but here's a past article. What's the latest? With so many bank customers considering a switch these days, what has your credit union done to make it easier?

The Delta Way: Reflections on Merger Marketing

Posted by Lisa Hochgraf

Early this month evening I flew to Madison to be at CUES headquarters for my 10th employment anniversary luncheon (see the photo here). In Detroit, I had to literally run from one plane to the next.

Thankfully I made the flight, still labeled as a Northwest jet, but with clear signs of the Delta merger present. When I thanked one of the flight attendants for waiting, she said, "It's the Delta way. As Northwest, we would have left. But Delta waits for people."

Wow! Am I ever a proponent of the Delta way!

The experience got me to thinking about the marketing aspects of mergers. So let me ask you some questions, especially if you've ever merged with another CU.

• How did you preserve the best in the member service culture of both credit unions? (The Delta way is definitely my choice in terms of helping passengers make connections, but I'd guess there are Northwest culture characteristics worth preserving, too.)
• How did you talk about the merger with members? (There were updates in the Delta in-flight magazine on my Northwest flight.)
• What plan did you have (and at what cost) for converting your brand image to the remaining credit union? (It seems like yesterday that Northwest was repainting planes to match its new brand look, and now Delta is repainting them again.)

Our Web Site = Us

Posted by Lisa Hochgraf

Did you ever have one of those experiences that underscores something obvious? My recent work on the CUES membership campaign reminded me that the face of an organization may be just as much digital as personal.

Last Monday and Wednesday, I made calls and swapped e-mails with five credit union executives, with an aim for helping them take fuller advantage of their memberships. I was impressed how this group was definitely checking out cues.org as a first way to get to know the organization, and loved knowing that the CUES Members Share archives have a ton of information for them. Full transparency, though, I was also embarrassed when one of the Management magazine article indexes timed out for one member before it fully downloaded. (We're working on that directly, as well as taking an overall look at the effectiveness of our site.)

So while I was the "face" of CUES for these five executives last week because I was calling and e-mailing, our Web site also played an important role in their perception of their professional development association. Likewise, I imagine tellers and member service representatives at a credit union are critical to its public perception. At the same time, the impact of its Web site should not be underestimated.

Drum Roll, Please ...

Posted by Lisa Hochgraf

Used to be you had to be on hand after the CUES Golden Mirror Awards banquet if you wanted to check out "the boards"--a room full of displays of the winning GMA entries. Marketers, CEOs, vendors, agency reps and I used to walk up and down long aisles of easels, checking out the great ideas, celebrating the successes, and loving the artwork and choices of color.

My how things have changed.

This year you and I can check out the best in credit union marketing right here, without ever leaving our seats. From that one link, you can view not only a list of winners, but the complete entries, artwork and materials for each one of the winners. And for the top three--the GMA Best of Show, the Rookie of the Year and the Golden Shoestring--there's also a video summary of their winning work.

So join me after the drum roll ... in congratulating--and being inspired by--the 2009 GMA winners!

Marketing Through Sponsors or Major SEGs?

Posted by Lisa Hochgraf

I spent a fair bit of time in the Newark and Cleveland airports this holiday. This airport time wasn't long enough to be miserable, but it was long enough to notice and take some notes about two bank marketing efforts.

What I noted is that banks are in the airports marketing through airline partners--companies I'm pretty sure credit unions also serve. This is not a dig at airline credit unions ... but rather a probe of what credit unions in general might be able to do more of in this new year in terms of leveraging the existing branding of their large sponsors or select employee groups.

These were the two things I observed:

• In Newark, where I spent four hours or so, HSBC had bought a logo ad on the outside of what appeared to be every last Continental Airlines jetwway. Big and prominent.
• In Cleveland, where I spent more than five hours, I saw this ad on my walk inside the jetway and also on posters inside the airport: "Checked bag fees? Bag 'em. Get your first checked bag fee waived with the Continental Airlines Chase credit or debit card. For more information visit continental.com."

What a great way to take advantage of what some other company spent on their brand to promote your own!What credit unions do you know of that are doing a great job with this? What are some other ways credit unions might be able to do this? Please comment.

Stop reading here to miss the shameless plug ...

Maybe I'll get lucky and see some additional examples of leveraging sponsor and SEG brands to credit union advantage when I peruse this year's entries in the Golden Mirror Awards contest. The final deadline for submissions is coming up Jan. 9.

Projecting ... The Future?

Are you sick of force feeding advertising? Maybe your CUs' pool of possible members is tired of it too.

I've been looking into some of the new advertising methods that step outside the box and engage passersby. The focus of these new, high-tech methods is to advertise without the target market even knowing they are looking at an advertisement or, if they do know, to be so intrigued they don't look away.

Young & Free Alberta has been using highly mobile wall projections as part of its campaign, the benefits being that the projectors are something new and highly visible, let you readily change the ad image, and let you move the ads to a new place every night.

This means the projector can be set up along commuter routes during the week and then moved to an area of entertainment during the weekend.

"You can do radio and TV [advertising], but Gen Ys are into different stuff," says Tim McAlpine, president/chief strategist at Currency Marketing, the marketing firm behind the Young and Free Alberta campaign.

The new ideas McAlpine comes up with may be targeted at Gen Y, but it isn't just members of Gen Y appreciating new forms of advertising. Grabbing attention in new and unique ways will get people of all ages to buy into the advertisements.

Wall projections are becoming more and more popular. I saw the local Barack Obama office was using them in Madison, Wis., just prior to voting day.

Here is a company offering such flat-wall ads your CU may be interested in.

What is the next step after flat wall projections? This article points skyward for the future of advertising. Projecting on the clouds? I guess the sky is the limit ... literally.

If the sky is the limit, the ground must also hold some answers. Dpar, Inc. thinks so. The company is looking to the floor for these answers. Dpar, Inc.'s highly interactive ads try to get people involved in games projected on the floor.

Want to take a look at the cutting edge of projector advertising? Look at this company, Obscura Digital. Its focus is to push the limits on multiple projector technology using several projectors to allow 3-D projections on uneven surfaces without looking funny.

"We're not just doing cool things for cool things' sake; we're using our technology to make extensions of a brand," says Patrick Connolly, CEO of Obscura Digital. "We're trying to pull these companies out of the Stone Age."

Obscura must be doing something right, because it has advertising contracts with some of the biggest companies in the United States. Check out what Obscura did for AOL. Click "watch video."

Also watch this one.

What does all this mean? It means your CU may need to take a fresh look at its advertising strategies to open new avenues to attract members. Don't stand still while your competition captures attention in cutting-edge ways.

Jon Cook is a CUES editorial intern.