PLANO, Texas—Seeking to leverage electronic media as the best avenue to influence younger consumers, the Cornerstone CU League will launch a digital advertising campaign in 2017 that will include website, social media and YouTube ads.
The league is primarily targeting Millennials and Gen Xers, with a secondary target of the underbanked and Hispanic markets, with its “Feel the Difference” consumer awareness campaign toolkit.
The kit, explained Jon Gorman, Cornerstone SVP communications and outreach, is designed to help unite credit union messaging and provide both off-the-shelf and customizable campaign materials that support and complement individual credit union branding and advertising efforts across Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.
Gorman called the campaign a “multi-tier effort” the league hopes will overcome consumer misperceptions of the credit union difference—“a difference you can feel”—and further drive CU membership growth.
“We know that each individual credit union brand faces the same initial challenges and barriers based on the position of the industry as a whole. Therefore, a success for the industry is a success for every credit union,” he said.
YouTube Ads
The campaign’s digital advertising will appear in advance of selected YouTube videos, and via banner ads on various websites. The website ads will leverage vSlider and VPlayer technology to play the ads across laptops, tablets and mobile devices.
“We will be doing some behaviorally targeted banner ads that are geo-targeted to the Cornerstone markets,” said Gorman. “The ads support the videos, and, in addition to going after our targeted demographics, they target those looking for auto and home loans, as well as those simply seeking financial information. We will do some Pandora advertising, as well.”
Gorman said the digital ads begin in 2017 and will run throughout the year. He emphasized that the ad placements, and costs for the toolkit, are being paid for by the league. Gorman did not share costs for the campaign.
Gorman said the league conducted qualitative and quantitative research across the league’s three states that revealed that Millennials, Gen X and the underbanked conduct the majority of their financial research online.
“We decided that the best way to reach our target audience is through digital advertising,” said Gorman.
Reach Out Today
Gorman emphasized the importance of CUs reaching out to these younger consumers today, as they will be the members of tomorrow. He added that it’s important credit unions clear up any confusion consumers have about credit unions.
“Young consumers, and consumers in general, need to know why credit unions are different and better,” said Gorman.
The digital ads begin by stating how credit unions and banks are much the same, with the same reach, the same products and the same services.
“Then in the middle we flip the script,” said Gorman. “We talk about why credit unions are different and better—how they are member owned, how earnings go back to members in the form of higher deposit and lower loan rates . . . We also mention how banks exist to benefit their shareholders and that credit unions are trustworthy.”
The league’s research revealed the common misperceptions consumers have had with credit unions for years still exist—uncertainty about being able to join, CUs have more limited products and services than banks, they are not as accessible as banks, and CU technology trails banks.
At the heart of the advertising campaign is a toolkit member credit unions can use to support their local advertising and branding efforts.
“The toolkit is designed not to replace CUs’ local advertising and branding but to complement their ongoing efforts,” Gorman said.
League members can log onto the Cornerstone website and download editable files and PDFs and customize them, and pick up radio scripts, digital ads and advertising for social media.
Heavy Traffic
Gorman said that when the toolkit was introduced Nov. 27, that in the last four days of the month the campaign’s page was the second-most visited page on the Cornerstone website, only behind homepage visits.
The league hopes the campaign will help credit unions across Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas deliver a powerful, unified message to consumers to drive greater understanding of the credit union movement.
“We want all credit unions in these three states to speak form the same script,” said Gorman.