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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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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09/23/2009

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

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 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.

 

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09/21/2009

Thing 14 of 30: ban acronyms from our brand names

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 14: ban acronyms from our brand names

The credit union industry has an insatiable desire to shorten the term credit union to CU (often pronounced 'Q'). But it doesn't stop there—it usually extends to the rest of the credit union's name as well rendering the brand name emotionless, instantly forgettable and completely undifferentiated.

Morriss Partee wrote about his distain for this practice over a year ago. I absolutely agree. It stinks and does nothing to help the already low public understanding of what a credit union is.

To borrow from Morriss' post, here are just a few of the acronym-laden industry organizations: CUNA, CUSO, CUES, CULAC, CURIA, CUMIS, CUMAA, CUSC, CCUE, CCACU, CUIAA, CUSIP, CUIS, NCUA, NCUF, NACUSO, NASCUS, NACUSAC, NACUC, NCUIS, NAFCU, NCUSIF, NARCUP, NASCCU, ITCUA, ACCU, ACUCE, AACUL, ACUMA, OCCU, WOCCU, CCUL, NMCUA, NYSCUL, GCUA, MDDCCUA, FCUL, ICUL, ICUS, KCUA, MNCUN, CUCA, ACUC and on and on.

And of course the natural-person credit unions are not immune to acronymitis either: BECU, BCU, DCU, PSECU, UCU, USFCU, LCU, RCU, TFCU, VCU, KSFCU, TCCU, CCCU, CCFCU, CCU, ACU, AFCU, AHCU and BFCU to name but a few.

If I was a credit union leader, our credit union would not shorten its name. Ever.

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04/21/2009

Human, humorous and helpful!

By Tim McAlpine

I am a member of Banktastic. It's a great financial-services-industry-resource-social-network-community thingy. The last couple of times I have logged in my dashboard says I have these two friend alerts from the same person. I have tried to accept them, but I get an error. Today, I decided to report the error and this is the message that I received back within about 15 minutes:

"From: Mark McSpadden
Subject: Alerts that I can't clear

Tim,

Here at Banktastic, we believe friendship is something that has become too flippant in this age of social networks. Friends are added without a second thought and honestly we find this trend disturbing.

Therefore, within Banktastic, we make you fight for your friendships. A friendship is worth more than a few clicks. To reinforce this, we've randomized some friendships to not be accepted until after the 100th click. We hope this will help our members realize the importance and seriousness of social network friendships.

OK, not really. It's a bug we've seen a few times in some of our early member profiles and friendships. I'll clear it out this evening and let you know when you can expect an alert-free Banktastic experience.

Thanks for letting us know about it! (And for being my creative outlet for the day!)

Mark McSpadden
xxx-xxx-xxxx"

I loved this response. In this canned-message-mechanical-contact-center era, it's nice to receive a human, helpful and mighty humorous response. Is it appropriate for Banktastic? You bet. Is it appropriate for your credit union? Maybe not, but I sure hope that your frontline staff are allowed to deviate from the script. This experience once again proved to me that a brand is so much more than just a logo and a set of standards!

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12/16/2008

Credit union virgins?

By Tim McAlpine

There is a lot of buzz about the Whopper Virgins documentary right now.

 

I really enjoyed this short film. It makes its point in a very subtle unbiased way. Burger King really understands what makes it tick and plays the underdog part better than any other brand. Not only does Burger King have the ultimate competitor in McDonald's, both brands have very similar lead products to compare—the Big Mac versus the Whopper.

I have often thought there are two main problems with attracting new members to credit unions.

1. The inability to taste test
2. The lack of a simple and compelling difference

If your credit union looks like a bank, acts like a bank, uses the same recipes as a bank, it is going to taste like a bank.

This approach works for hamburgers. I wish something like this could work to prove the credit union difference, but until there is an easy taste test and a simple and compelling difference, credit unions will continue to be misunderstood and very underrated.

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11/24/2008

Happy 100 to the US credit union movement. Would a credit union by any other name smell as sweet?

By Tim McAlpine

Anytime you get a bunch of credit union fans together in a room, or on Twitter for that matter, the discussion comes around to how bad the credit union name sucks.

On this historic date in history, where ironically the first US credit union is named St. Mary's Bank, lets rename the credit union movement in the comments.

But rather than a serious discussion like the one Trey had on Thwart Mediocrity a couple of months ago about why he felt credit unions should be known as cooperative banks, let's just have a silly discussion, because you know the name is never going to change!

Here's two thought starters for you.

• Lil' Bank
• Bank Junior

Your turn!

P.S. And just so we're clear: I mean no disrespect to credit unions. I love credit unions and think its awesome that today is the 100th birthday. Did I mention that I love credit unions?

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11/10/2008

Challenge marketing for credit unions part 0: a preface

By Tim McAlpine

It's time for a meaty series of blog posts. This is part 0 of however many it takes.

Currency Marketing works exclusively with credit unions. That I know. However, for awhile now I have been wrestling with what Currency Marketing does for credit unions. We have been the agency of record, the design studio, the brand consultancy, the interactive agency and the communications firm. To cover all of the bases, we call ourselves a credit union marketing agency. 

But then this wildly successful social-media-plus-user-generated-video-Internet-contest-spokester-extravaganza-campaign-that-never-ends-marketing-mash-up-program took us in a new direction and has given us a new competency in something very exciting and very different.

At first, I thought it was social media marketing, but that's not enough. Social media is just one success factor. The more I think about it, the more I like the term challenge marketing.

In fact, I feel so strongly about this type of marketing approach that I have changed the positioning of our firm. This is what we do.

Super-charged credit union member engagement. Driving product sales and member growth through powerful challenge marketing programs.

If you don't believe me, check out our new homepage.

I will remember 2008 as The Year of Dozens of Long Flights. I prefer the aisle seat, because I can easily grab my laptop from the overhead compartment and plunk away when the feeling hits me. On a few of the longer flights, I have been attempting to write a white paper that reverse engineers Young & Free Alberta's success.

But I realize now that I work better in blog post chunks. So, I am going to bash out a series of posts that identify the success factors of challenge marketing. And, ideally, you the reader will challenge me in the comments and in the end I will have what I need to put it all together and have the white paper that I have been hoping for.

Here are the sections that I will write about:

1. An introduction to challenge marketing—moving beyond passive contesting and throw-away promotions
2. Getting comfortable with sales and marketing on the social web and how to keep things local
3. Designing a challenge, a product offer and a reward that are sure to ignite a niche group and align with your credit union's goals and objectives
4. Using traditional and non-traditional marketing to jump start your program
5. Should you require a log-in to participate?
6. Building your program on a suitable web platform
7. Creating a steady stream of entertaining and educational content
8. Encouraging multiple levels of participation that build and reward an army of followers
9. Setting participation goals and consistently measuring
10. Allocating appropriate resources and support and figuring out who should be involved

Does that sound like a good plan to you? I am sure I have missed something, but 10 parts will be a great start. And now that I have put it out there, I have to complete it.

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10/05/2008

CU Branding 101: What's the difference and does it matter?

By Tim McAlpine

There were many highlights at the FORUM Solution/Trabian Partnership Symposium, but the best part to me was the unveiling of the CU Skeptic. We now all know that the CU Skeptic is Mark McSpadden from The Garland Group and the host of Banktastic TV's the CU Scoop.

Mark did a great job of presenting his case. One of the screens that he employed to prove his point was simply titled "The Difference Between Credit Unions and Banks" which was followed immediately by a blank screen. In Mark's sub-30 Gen Y opinion, there is absolutely nothing different between the two. We can all go on and on about the member ownership, the not-for-profit structure and the community centered focus, but to the Skeptic and in his estimation, to the general public these things either don't matter or are completely invisible.

Mark's blogging as the Skeptic grew out of being tired of the credit union cheerleaders (including yours truly) blogging about how great and different credit unions are.

Does the difference between credit unions and banks even matter?

The problem with this age old comparison is that the differences are subtle and the differences are often different!

Ultimately, each credit union needs to be relevant and desirable to its own members. This point was brought home by William Azaroff presenting his story about Vancity (400,000 members and $14B in assets) and Gene Blishen presenting his story about Mount Lehman Credit Union (2,000 members and $40M in assets).

Other than both being credit unions, these two institutions have absolutely nothing in common. This is a good thing, because both serve a very different group of people and both of these credit unions are very successful.

So why the fixation on a national brand campaign?

A recurring theme at these events and online is the need for a nationwide brand awareness campaign in the US to illustrate the difference between credit unions and banks. In theory, this is a good idea, but the main problem is that large groups of credit unions can never agree on a compelling universal difference.

Since hearing the Skeptic's talk, I have had this mock meeting conversation rattling around in my head.

The scene: the Motel Owners Association National Convention 300 motel stakeholders have congregated to discuss the need for a national branding campaign. "We need to get the word out that motels are better than hotels. Those hotel guys are eating our lunch." "Yeah, hotels are all about making the big profits. Motels are an affordable alternative. So first of all, let's decide on what makes us different." "Doors on the outside?" "No, we have halls at our motel." "How about anything under two floors?" "Nope, we have three floors." "Kitchenettes?" "No. Some hotels have kitchenettes. We can't use that." "What if we go after the business practices of the hoteliers?" "Not our style. Besides, we'll have the tourism regulators kill our campaign." Two hours later after serious brainstorming and debate, two final message emerge that all 300 conference delegates can agree on: "Motels... Our towels are slightly scratchier." "Motels... It is 68% fewer steps on average from car to pillow."

 

But perhaps now there is a compelling difference that needs to be told

With the big banks in the US in an endless downward spiral, now would be the time to promote a unifying difference between credit unions and banks. A message of trust would resonate more today than ever before.

Will it happen? Not likely. There are too many cooks and there is fear of casting any doubt towards the stability of the big banks.

Bottom line:

Defining and promoting your credit union's brand is your problem. Do everything you can to stand out against the competitors in your marketplace. Lean on some of the global credit union differences if that makes sense in your situation or define your own difference and stick to it over time.

The CU Skeptic provided all of the Symposium attendees with a splash of cold water. Thanks Mark!

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