10/29/2009

Living Young & Free Show 007: Financial Horror Stories, Halloween Costumes on the Cheap and Raising Your Credit From the Dead

By Tim McAlpine

Welcome to the special Living Young & Free Halloween edition! Josh from South Carolina has a faceless fill in interview people about their financial horror stories, Cheryl concocts original costumes for less than $10 and Myles from Alberta raises his credit card from the dead. DeAndre' from Texas is eerily missing, but everything should be fine. Right?*

You can also download all of the episode as a podcast from iTunes.

Enjoy!

*DeAndre' has been super busy with the launch of the 2009 Young & Free Texas Spokesperson search and had to sit this episode out.

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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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10/20/2009

Would you, could you take DeAndre's job? Young & Free Texas launches its year two search

By Tim McAlpine

It's time to look for DeAndre' Upshaw's replacement in Texas. His one-year term as the Young & Free Texas Spokesperson is coming to an end. To ensure that we find a worthy successor, TDECU has launched a fully integrated campaign throughout its marketplace in Texas.

Here are just some of the pieces of the campaign

Young & Free Texas microsite transformed for the search phase

Video: Would You Could You Take My Job?

Clockwise from top left: Facebook ads, print ads, staff information sheets and billboards

It's both an exciting and nerve-racking time since DeAndre' has set the bar exceptionally high. Here are some impressive DeAndre' stats to date:

• 265 blog posts created
• 57 videos produced

During the relaunch of the Young & Free sites, we created a tips and tools section on each site. Within this section is a compilation of all of the Young & Free Spokesters money-related blog posts. Take a look here to see just how many well-researched and very helpful articles and videos that DeAndre' has produced over the past 10 months. DeAndre's body of work as the Young & Free Texas Spokesperson is phenomenal. How he produced all of this while completing his senior year at Baylor University is beyond me!

DeAndre' will continue on to the end of the search phase in mid-December and continue to crank out the awesome content that he has spoiled us with.

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10/20/2009

Interview featured on The Financial Brand today

By Tim McAlpine

Jeffry Pilcher interviewed me recently (back and forth in e-mail form) and he just published the article today. I gave my thoughts on integrated social media marketing. Please take a read and leave a comment!

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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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10/06/2009

Living Young & Free Show 006: Checking and Savings Accounts, Gourmet Meals on the Cheap and the Online Banking Song

By Tim McAlpine

Our host Cheryl welcomes Young & Free Alabama to the Young & Free family, DeAndre' from Texas breaks down the difference between savings and checking accounts, Josh from South Carolina cooks a gourmet meal on the cheap and Myles from Alberta is singing about the benefits of online banking.

You can also download all of the episode as a podcast from iTunes. Enjoy!

P.S. You must watch the last segment—Myles' Online Banking Song is made of awesome.

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10/01/2009

22 days has September?

By Tim McAlpine

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 will push the missing eight posts out over the next couple of weeks—I need to slow down a little.

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

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