02/08/2010

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

By Tim McAlpine

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.

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12/09/2009

I was on the CU Chat Up Radio Show today

By Tim McAlpine

I was on Carla Day's CU Chat Up Radio Show today with Shari Storm from Seattle's Verity Credit Union. First, Shari talked about her new book and then Shari and I talked about Verity Mom. Finally, Carla and I discussed my recent 30 things blog series (yes, I know it's only 22 things so far).

Thanks Carla for inviting me on the show! Keep up the great work with CU Chat Up.

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12/02/2009

What's next? Is it branded content?

By Tim McAlpine

I find myself pondering the question "What's next in financial services marketing?" a lot lately. There has been this two- to three-year rush to embrace social media and now everyone seems to be here! Great, now what?

I am not sure what's next, but I have observed that it is getting increasingly tough for financial institutions (and any company for that matter) to stand out amongst the increasingly crowded social media space. It is no longer the wild social media west, it's starting to feel like Manhattan in rush hour!

With new media evangelists (Denise Wymore, you know who you are) giving traditional media its last rights, and companies tweeting til the cows come home and clamoring for Facebook fandom, it's bringing to light the absolute need for high-quality break-out content in both written and video form. Enter branded content—a modern spin on the age-old, serialized soap opera. From Wikipedia:

Advertainment is a relatively new form of advertising medium that blurs conventional distinctions between what constitutes advertising and what constitutes entertainment. Branded content is essentially a fusion of the two into one product intended to be distributed as entertainment content, albeit with a highly branded quality. Advertainment, unlike conventional forms of entertainment content, is generally funded entirely by a brand or corporation rather than, for example, a Movie studio or a group of producers. However, it can be argued that this is just a new name for the same type of marketing that was pioneered by soap manufacturers in the early days of radio and television with the soap opera.

With 24 hours of video content being uploaded to YouTube every minute, there is something to be said for producing entertaining content that rises above a guy trying to set a record for the most kicks to the crotch (click at your own risk) and dogs riding skateboards. Producing quality content that people want to watch and spread to others is becoming increasingly important to get noticed.

In our own little way, this is what we have been attempting to do with our Living Young & Free Show.

Now ponder this new example of financial services marketing: In Gayle We Trust brought to you by American Family Insurance and produced by NBC Universal Digital Studios. Here is a press release for more info.

From the about page:

Nestled somewhere in the middle of America, Maple Grove is populated with a host of colorful characters, and they all turn to one person for insurance needs, counseling and much much more. Though an insurance agent by trade, Gayle Evans has become the default cure-all for the small town, as her pleasant disposition and sound advice has made her a go-to resource in the lives of her clients. From a newlywed couple seeking weekly marital advice, to a over-confident plumber trying to protect his coveted identity, to a traveling hypnotist needing liability coverage, Gayle's clientele range from sympathetic to pathetic to outright bizarre. In Gayle We Trust, a 10-part comedy series from NBCU Digital Studio is written and directed by multiple Emmy-winner Brent Forrester (The Office, The Simpsons, King of the Hill).

It immersive, it's entertaining, it must cost millions. What can we learn from this? Is branded content the equivalent of Web 3.0? Is it the next big thing?

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11/17/2009

He wore our shirt! Fantastic fun for about $600

By Tim McAlpine

As I mentioned yesterday, I rented Jason Sadler's torso (of iwearyourshirt.com fame) to promote Living Young & Free. For $313, we received the use of said torso for the full day of November 17, 2009 (the 313th day of the year). To get the most bang for our buck, we added a life-size cut out of DeAndre', Josh and Myles which ran us $100 plus shipping. Finally, add in the cost of an XL T-Shirt and you've got a $600 media buy beyond compare.

For that price, we received two tweets to Jason's 23,000 Twitter followers...

Mutiple status updates to Jason's 3,000 Facebook friends...

Four Flickr photos...

One hour of live coverage on Ustream.tv...

(If the above video is all black when you press play, hit the refresh button on the lower left)

A wrap up video on YouTube and Facebook...

Four minutes on national live TV on MSNBC...

 

Plus, we owned Jason's home page for the day...

And if that weren't enough, Jason will be wearing our shirt on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric this coming Monday, November 23. Seriously.

What an absolute gas. Jason Sadler is the hardest working man on the Internet. I cannot believe that he does this seven days a week. What I love is that it is 100% real and authentic. There is no automation (tweeting in advance, auto DMs, etc.). Just one guy being incredibly social!

What's the social media marketing ROI of the above? I have no idea, but $600 seems like a steal to me. Thanks again to Jason Sadler, who will likely be running for U.S. President in 2012.

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11/16/2009

Jason Stadler is wearing a Living Young & Free shirt tomorrow!

By Tim McAlpine

I learned about Jason Stadler and his iwearyourshirt.com website in February 2009 after he'd been up and running for about a month. I love simple brilliant ideas and this is definitely one of the most original concepts I've heard about in a long time. Here's a description from Jason's site.

Well it’s a pretty simple idea and I’m a pretty simple guy. For 2009, I am selling the upper-half of my wardrobe (shirts). I am selling every day of the year at face value, so January 1 is $1 and December 31 is $365. I will be selling all 365 days without exception!

So what do you get for the day(s) you purchased? Well I’m glad you asked. You mail me your shirt (size: X-Large) and you get:

• Daily Video on YouTube & Ustream.tv
• Daily Photos on the blog & Flickr
• Daily Posts on the blog & Twitter
• Calendar (You/Your Company's Logo & Website)
• All of these with me wearing your shirt

Upon seeing this service for the first time back in February, I immediately bought a day! And tomorrow is that day. Jason will be sporting a Living Young & Free shirt and will be a honorary Young & Free Spokesperson for November 17, 2009. We've got some fun stuff planned including a contest.

I've tuned in from time to time throughout the year and have witnessed Jason turning into a one-man-social-media dynamo. His daily, one-hour live shows attract lots of viewers and he has been featured on dozens of national news sites including CNN and the New York Times.

Tune in to the live show tomorrow on Ustream.tv at noon Pacific.

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10/21/2009

Young & Free Alberta launches Cash In With Your Camcorder video contest

By Tim McAlpine

Our founding Young & Free partner, Alberta's Servus Credit Union, has just launched an exciting new promotion called Cash In With Your Camcorder. With our help, Servus is asking young adults to create a 30-second commercial that shows why the Young & Free Chequing Account rocks.

The first place winner will receive $2,000 cash and the second place winner will receive $1,000! Plus, the winning commercials may be used in future advertising!

Here are just some of the pieces of the campaign

Young & Free Alberta microsite transformed for the contest

Video: Myles introduced the Cash In With Your Camcorder video contest

Clockwise from top left: Online banner ads, staff information sheets, wobblers, pamphlets, Facebook ad and mini posters

The Cash In With Your Camcorder video contest provides yet another way for young people to participate in Young & Free in a fun and interactive way. It's a great complement to the Spokester search and will allow more creative young adults to show their talents.

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10/07/2009

If the pistachio industry can do it, can't credit unions?

By Tim McAlpine

The discussion of a national brand campaign for the US credit union industry was rekindled yet again. First on Mary Arnold's blog post on the CUES Skybox, then on Ron Shevlin's Marketing Tea Party blog and the conversation continues on Morriss' Partee blog posts about a whether a third-party vendor should be given free reign to fill the bill.

Then I learned about this edgy new national brand campaign from the pistachio industry. There must be a full moon.

This is from an article from Megan Angelo on the Wallet Pop blog.

"The pistachio industry wants to get nut lovers' minds off salmonella and onto sex. Pistachios took a big publicity hit last year when 2 million pounds of the greenish nut had to be recalled due to salmonella contamination.

Now, as USA Today reports, the industry is striking back with a grabby campaign that casts the pistachio alongside winking innuendos ("Mobsters do it with muscle") and C-list celebrities like Adrienne Curry, Chris Knight and the curiously ubiquitous Levi Johnston. (One slightly creepy short stars the five-year-old Denny quintuplets hopping around on bouncy balls as the voice over proclaims that "Quintuplets do it with balance."

Here is the microsite:

The Get Crackin' campaign is extensive and extremely well funded—apparently to the tune of $15 million. It has a user-generated video contest and multiple provoking TV spots. For example:

Jeffry Pilcher has this to say on Ron's blog about a national credit union brand campaign:

"One thing is for certain, and that is the credit union industry has a huge problem. Research has proven over and over that people don’t know what credit unions are, therefore people don’t consider credit unions as viable financial alternatives. A solution should be found for this problem, whatever name you want to give it. It seems as if a lot of people summarily dismiss the problem because they don’t like the proposed solution (brand campaign)."

Morriss Partee offered this counterpoint:

"I think a common misconception that many credit union professionals and board members hold is that the “Got Milk” campaign was successful. Yes, there was a lot of awareness for the CAMPAIGN; celebrities lined up to be in it…. but the deep dark secret is that it didn’t actually increase SALES of MILK. In fact, it worked brilliantly to commoditize milk, driving many smaller dairy farmers to either go out of business or figure out a way to differentiate themselves DESPITE THE NATIONAL BRANDING CAMPAIGN. Anyone want an additional battle to fight right now? No? No takers?"

CUNA ran an under-the-radar contest last year to see what the crowd could come up with. Speaking of Jeffry Pilcher, his entry won.

 

It's a good ad and I'm sure there are plenty more out there that would help promote the credit union difference.

Begs the question: If a nut that nobody thinks about can pull an industry together, shouldn't credit unions? I'm just a credit union fan from Canada. What the heck do I know?

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09/28/2009

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

By Tim McAlpine

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.

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09/28/2009

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

By Tim McAlpine

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!

*Actually, those are the two reactions people have about Twitter!

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09/24/2009

Thing 17 of 30: use Internet video

By Tim McAlpine

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.

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