Thing 23 of 30: Hire an Internet celebrity to promote your credit union

Last September, I attempted to write 30 articles in 30 days detailing the things I would implement or consider implementing at my credit union if I was a credit union leader. I got to 22 and then proceeded to be buried by work for the next few months. I hate leaving things unfinished, so I'm going to get this list done over the next little while!

Thing 23 of 30: Hire an Internet celebrity to promote your credit union

The concept of a celebrity spokesperson is one of the oldest marketing concepts. The reason this marketing strategy is still around is because it works. People relate to people not companies or products.

Most credit unions likely haven't considered hiring a celebrity pitchman because of the huge talent cost and the additional high cost of placing ads on TV.

Enter the web celeb and online video. There are powerhouse personlities on YouTube with audiences that dwarf mainstream media. I'll bet you haven't heard of Fred Figglehorn, Lauren Luke, Shane Dawson, Dave Days, Esmee Denters, Jessica Lee Rose, Tay Zonday, Ryan Higa, Justin Bieber and the countless other YouTube celebs, but trust me, your kids have.

Warning: Some of the videos created by the above personalities may not be safe for work and will likely leave you scratching your head, but trust me, these and other popular video creators generate hundreds of millions of video views. And many of these folks have transitioned to promoting companies and products.

I know you are questioning my sanity, but stay with me. I first wrote about my favorite web celebs Rhett and Link almost two years ago when I discovered that they had been hired to promote Alka Seltzer. The Great American Road Trip campaign was awesome, but I think that their latest campaign is even more brilliant. It's called I Love Local Commercials. Microbilt, a technology company specializing in small business software, has hired Rhett and Link to produce free commercials for companies across the US. Read the FAQs for the low down.

Well last week, they debuted their latest creation, a 90-second web commercial for Bucks First Federal Credit Union in Pennsylvania.

After just five days, this video is now the most watched credit-union-related video of all time with more than 160,000 views. In fact, a companion behind-the-scenes video also has more than 130,000 views!

So before you dismiss this idea, why not do some research to see if there is a popular web celeb in your backyard that would be interested in helping you promote your credit union? If I were a credit union leader, I know I would! It could be a very affordable and effective way to get the word out.

Tim

22 days has September?

I set a pretty audacious goal for myself—write 30 things in 30 days. I published 22 things. Not bad.

Truth be told, I haven't set enough time aside to blog in 2009 and the tweet above from the author of the Financial Brand, Jeffry Pilcher, gave me the kick start I needed to reinvest in the Currency blog.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence, but over the past month Morriss Partee has been blogging more, Matt Dean has posting some great stuff on Open Source CU after an almost two-year hiatus, and low and behold, Ron Shevlin has started a new blog!

Thanks Jeffry.

I've enjoyed spending time thinking more deeply than is possible in 140 characters!

I have to agree with Matt Davis, "I guess CU blogs aren't dead."

Tim

Thing 22 of 30: Act like there is no tomorrow

September is 30 things I would implement or consider implementing at my credit union if I was a credit union leader.

Thing 22: Act like there is no tomorrow

Have you noticed that things are changing pretty fast? That the status quo gets you nowhere? Did you know that technology is changing everything and putting the consumer in charge of every facet of their lives?

Established service industries are being turned on their heads. Here's a few examples:

• The Internet has all but killed the printed daily newspaper business. The publishing titans did not see that coming.
• The iTunes Store has changed the way consumers buy music. Record stores are gone. iTunes is now the #1 music retailer in the world. It has no physical presence and it did not exist five years ago. The recording industry did not see that coming.
• Netflix is doing the same thing to the movie rental business. I'll bet Blockbuster did not see that coming.
• Tivo has changed the way we consume television. The traditional 'Madison Avenue' ad agencies did not see that coming and have yet to adapt from the 30-second (skippable) spot mentality.
• The Amazon Kindle is attempting to do the same thing to the book publishing industry. I'll bet the print industry didn't see that coming.

If anything, history repeats itself. Old business models don't last forever. It's ironic that credit unions are celebrating 100 years of history. And in all of this celebration of the past, there is very little talk of the future.

There was an event held in New York yesterday called Finovate2009. About 50 companies gave seven-minute demos of their products.

That's about 50 companies all thinking and doing something about the future. About 50 companies all trying to be the iTunes that sets the traditional banking industry on its head. Where were the credit unions? Here is a Twitter search to read the real-time buzz from yesterday.

The irony of Finovate 2009 was that the best of show winner was Kasasa. (read Kasasa: A third-party national checking brand on the Financial Brand for a really good overview). Kasasa is reinventing the most basic of financial products—the checking account. The very domain of the credit union. What they have done is revolutionary. And simple. And awesome.

If I was the leader of a credit union, I would remember the past but I would spend way more time thinking about the future and less time sitting on our laurels.

UPDATE: Morriss Partee added a video link in the comments. It proves the point so well, that I have embedded it below.

Tim

Thing 21 of 30: Implement a white-label PFM

September is 30 things I would implement or consider implementing at my credit union if I was a credit union leader.

Thing 21: Implement a white-label PFM

Just as soon as we replaced that nasty-10-year-old website at my fictitious credit union, I would jump straight to implementing a personal financial management tool (PFM) inside my credit union's online banking site.

If this PFM term is new to you, imagine the desktop software Quicken or Microsoft Money sitting right inside your online banking system with robust budgeting and tagging (categorization of income and expenses) right there, without requiring your members to download or manually enter transaction data.

Sound impossible? Or futuristic? Not only is it possible and available right now, there are a number of vendors clamoring to offer this service to banks and credit unions.

Web service firms like Mint.com have been doing a bang-up job of sucking the data right out of your credit union online banking sites and giving consumers a slick representation of all of their accounts at various financial institutions for a while now.

You can either live with this reality or fight back with a white-label PFM that sits right inside your online banking system and gives your members everything they need without having to rely on a third-party.

I have personal experience with the public Wesabe service, and I would give it five out of five stars. Wesabe is now offering a white-label version called Springboard. In addition, I know of a number of others worth checking out. Jwaala MoneyTracker, Geezeo, FinanceWorks from Digital Insights and a local Canadian company, PennyMinder. I am sure there are more, but this will give you a good start.

I know in Canada, many credit unions are on a standardized online banking system and having a PFM may not be available to you. You need to pressure your provider to put it on their roadmap pronto. There is a tremendous opportunity for credit unions to differentiate themselves if they can implement a robust PFM solution before their bank competitors.

If you believe this is a passing fad for a niche audience, ask yourself, "Why did Intuit, the makers of Quicken, QuickBooks and QuickTax, just pay $170 million for Mint.com?"

Tim

Thing 20 of 30: Take a Filene open-source idea and run with it

September is 30 things I would implement or consider implementing at my credit union if I was a credit union leader.

Thing 20: Take a Filene open-source idea and run with it

It's tough to come up with big ideas on your own. That's where the Filene Research Institute can help. Its mission is to support research efforts that will ultimately enhance the well-being of consumers and assist credit unions in adapting to rapidly changing economic, legal and social environments.

Basically, Filene is charged with coming up with big ideas and then setting them free for credit unions to implement. One of the ways that they do this is through the work of the i3 groups. Filene i3 is made up of a bunch of smart and creative credit union professionals that work to bring ideas to life. These small groups dream up innovative product and promotional ideas, create business cases and prototypes and ultimately package these ideas up for credit unions to take and implement.

There is big fat list of awesome ideas waiting to be brought to life at your credit union.

If I was a credit union leader, I would join Filene, spend some time pouring over all of the wonderful research and the i3 ideas, pick one or two and bring them to life at our credit union.

In fact, there is a whole laundry list of great Gen Y product ideas that a young group of credit union professionals called the CU Tomorrow group came up with that could help you fulfill 'Thing 19.'

Seriously, this sounds like a no-brainer to me!

Tim

Thing 19 of 30: Attract the next generation of credit union members

September is 30 things I would implement or consider implementing at my credit union if I was a credit union leader.

Thing 19: Attract the next generation of credit union members

You knew this had to be one of my 30 things! As you know, I've been yammering away (on my blog, at conferences and in magazine articles) about the need to attract new Generation Y members.

It's no secret that the median age of a North American is 35 and the median age of a credit union member is 47. This 12-year gap is a serious issue that needs to be attacked head-on or credit unions will find themselves going the way of the record stores (remember them?) and the daily newspaper publishers. Want more scary stats, check out one of my previous posts.

I am happy to say that the message is starting to get through. Thanks to heavyweights CUNA, Callahan & Associates, the Filene Research Institute, PSCU Financial Services and Brass Media, broader attention has been cast on this industry-wide issue.

In addition to our four active Young & Free programs, there are quite a few dedicated credit union Gen Y marketing initiatives up and running. This is a good start and it gets me excited to see that a number of credit unions are really taking this issue seriously. However, the 25 to 30 active initiatives that I follow are just scratching the surface. There are 9,000 credit unions in North America and only about 0.3% have committed to doing something. Yikes!

If I was a credit union leader I would make attracting the next generation of credit union members a major priority and I would plan to do something about it in 2010.

Tim

Thing 18 of 30: Lay claim to being first at something

September is 30 things I would implement or consider implementing at my credit union if I was a credit union leader.

Thing 18: Lay claim to being first at something

The credit union industry is better known for its conversative nature than being a group of pioneering innovators. On one hand, this has allowed credit unions to remain safe and sound in times of trouble, but on the other hand, it has also created a group of undifferentiated vanilla organizations that tend to follow instead of leading.

At my fictitious credit union we would concentrate on being first at something. Something radical and new. Something that no other financial institution has done to date.

An example of this kind of outrageous behaviour is premiering today. St. Louis-based Vantage Credit Union has just become the first financial institution to offer banking through Twitter! Here's the introductory tweet for Vantage's new tweetMyMoney service.

What I love about this innovative first is that people will have two reactions. 1. "Wow, that's awesome!" or 2. "OMG, that's stupid!"*

Here is some info from the simple mobile-friendly landing page:

We're excited to introduce the first-of-its-kind banking service via Twitter, available exclusively to Vantage members! View balances, move money and much more using tweetMyMoney.

• Choose to get balances on one or all your deposit accounts
• Get your 'last 5s' on one or all deposit accounts: deposits, withdrawals, checks cleared, transactions
• See what point-of-sale transactions are holding in your checking account and their dollar amounts
• Avoid overdrafts by making transfers from one deposit account to another... on the fly!

Congratulations are in order to the Vantage Credit Union team. I suspect this service will not only be popular with tech-savvy members, it will also attract more new members than producing yet another me-too deposit campaign.

What could you credit union be the first to do? That's the question I would spend time thinking about!

Tim

Thing 17 of 30: Use Internet video

September is 30 things I would implement or consider implementing at my credit union if I was a credit union leader.

Thing 17: Use Internet video

Heard of YouTube? Of course you have—it's the most popular website for sharing video on the Internet. It's enables you to post, distribute and embed video on your website or blog for free. With no additional infrustructure necessary on your part. There are many credit unions using video—in fact, there are more than 6,900 video tagged with "credit union" on YouTube. This number doesn't include other popular video sharing sites like Vimeo, Blip TV and Viddler.

Obviously, many credit unions are using video to their advantage, but there are thousands and thousands that are not. If I was a credit union leader, I would use Internet video to communicate our spirit, to promote and demostrate our products and services, to empower our employees, to celebrate our member stories, to train our employees and to give our credit union an approachable personality.

If Mount Lehman Credit Union can buy its 11-employees Flip Mino camcorders, so can you.

Tim

Thing 16 of 30: Be positive and shy away from bank bashing in our branding and marketing

September is 30 things I would implement or consider implementing at my credit union if I was a credit union leader.

Thing 16: Be positive and shy away from bank bashing in our branding and marketing

I like positivity versus negativity in life and in branding and marketing. That's why some credit union campaigns that focus solely on bank bashing rub me the wrong way. Jeffry Pilcher recently wrote a good opinion piece entitled, The ugly downside of bank bashing about this practice and I wholeheartedly agree with his take on the subject. The key questions that Jeffry asks are worth careful consideration:

• How can financial institutions rebuild consumer trust when so many of the industry’s own marketing messages say bankers are untrustworthy scum?
• Do consumers really see a difference between banks and credit unions?
• At what point can the financial industry no longer withstand the mockery, self-loathing and shame it heaps on itself?

Matt Davis, the Credit Union Warrior, recently wrote a great post entitled Bringing back optimism. Matt concludes with this, "Swallow your pride. Spend some money. Take some chances on your members. Be optimistic that in doing this, you are being exactly what you promised your members you would be: a financial institution that they can count on, no matter what."

At my fictitious credit union, I would portray a positive and optimistic image and stay away from heavy-handed bank bashing. I would concentrate on the differentiated traits that make our credit union special rather than constantly pointing out what's wrong with banking.

Unless you can toe the line with an entertainment and educational poke at the differences between the banks and credit unions, bank bashing can leave your potential members depressed versus inspired.

Caveat: if you choose to bash banks, do it exceptionally well

There is always an exception to the rule. Addison Avenue's new Bank Intervention campaign is a heavy handed (and hilarious) bank bashing extravaganza.

After exploring the microsite and watching all of the videos, I had an ear-to-ear smile. It's humorous, exceptionally well executed, the video-script writing is brilliant and the casting of the actors is top-notch. It combines terrific product offers, fun quizzes plus a smart Twitter tie-in. It is bank bashing done right. It works because it is highly entertaining.

Tim