Today is a very good day. I am excited to announce that our first U.S. Young & Free Program has just launched and its for TDECU headquartered in Lake Jackson, Texas!
+ Visit www.youngfreetexas.com to get a feel for the Texas program.
We are pairing our proven marketing program with TDECU's new GO2 Account that combines free checking and savings into a compelling offer. We will be searching for a member of Generation Y to be the paid Young & Free Texas Spokesperson. Again, we will connect with Generation Y in an authentic, compelling and unedited way.
There are striking similarities between our founding Young & Free partner, Common Weath Credit Union from Alberta and TDECU from Texas. Both organizations are headquarted in relatively small centres of less than 30,000 people, both have approximately a billion and half in assets and both have branches in small towns and branches that surround major metropolitan centres. Mind you, Edmonton has 500,000 people and Houston has 5,000,000. For that matter, Texas has almost as many people as all of Canada!
Sandy, Cheryl and I were treated to Texan hospitality in early June at our first onsite visit. The TDECU team is great to work with. Edward, Steve, Trey, Caite and Janice have openly embraced the program and given us free reign and the resources to ensure that it will be successful.
The treat for me is getting to work with Trey Reeme. Trey gets social media and is a real asset to the program, especially now that it is live as he will be forced to put his prolific blogger hat back on! Trey was chief blogger at Open Source CU and Trabian prior to taking his new position with TDECU as Director of Channel Integration in December 2007. He was an early inspiration for me as I was getting my feet wet in the social media space.
As with Alberta, the website is the just tip of the iceberg. We have a very innovative and aggressive traditional and alternative media strategy to help ensure that we not only attract new youth members but also attract a great young spokesperson. I want to thank everyone at Currency Marketing, K1 Technology, DSA Media and Brookline PR for working as a coordinated team. I also want to thank our first courageous U.S. Young & Free client, TDECU, for taking a chance and believing in Young & Free.
Tim
P.S. Another reason I have enjoyed working with Trey is that when he talks about his wife Jenny, he sounds a little like Forrest Gump with his Louisiana accent (just a little).