WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.-It took a century, but America's credit unions finally did more than just take off the gloves in demonstrating how they are different from banks-during 2009, they got creative, too.
In particular, credit unions across the country marked their 100th birthday by leveraging a relatively new media to highlight the age-old advantages of the not-for-profit, cooperative financial model.
It all couldn't have come at a better time. It was a year in which the words "bank" and "bailout" seemed to linked together in every news report. When the bailouts faded from the news, they were replaced by new reports about banks raising credit card APRs and fees on already stressed consumers, banks charging usurious bounced check fees, and banks paying big bonuses to CEOs.
Consumers filled blogs with such stories, complained to their friends on Facebook and even launched their own websites targeting specific banks and the industry in general.
While credit unions couldn't have bought more favorable media coverage, many weren't satisfied with the positive headlines. This year also saw:
• In January, North Carolina's Charlotte Metro Credit Union took to America's most watched TV event, the Super Bowl, with a 30-second commercial called "Fee Pig." The spot promoted the lower fees charged by Charlotte Metro, showing a pig on the lap of a consumer conducting her online banking and references the ongoing bank mergers. The campaign urged consumers not to ""feed the pig."
• In February, Oklahoma City-based Tinker FCU formally rolled out BuckTheNorm.com as a means of reaching Generation Y. The strategy included reinforcing the credit union difference by ensuring there was no concerted effort to make the website a sales platform.
• City-County FCU in Brooklyn Center, Minn., didn't beat around the bush in launching DropTheBank.com, where visitors are urged to "Choose Your Desiny." Click on the image of the greedy bankers and audio says, "Good choice. Our stockholders are looking to buy bigger houses this year." The video concludes, "You lose, try again." Click on the friendlier-looking CU image, and you get birds singing and audio saying "Thank you."
• Connecticut's Connex Credit Union asked "What's up with banks?" as part of a humorous yet hard-hitting campaign at unbanknow.org. That site included video of local residents responding to the query, "What's up with banks?" Suffice it to say responses were not of the positive variety. Moreover, a message board was filled with dozens of posts from consumers on the anti-consumer practices of banks.
• Among the most creative and pointed of 2009's efforts came from Addison Avenue FCU with its BankIntervention.com and a series of humorous vignettes in which a young man is confronted in an intervention by his family, which is deeply worried over his inability to shake his bank habit. "Kick your big bank habit," the site urges.
• Getting creative in attacking banks while extolling credit unions wasn't limited to the U.S. in 2009. In Vancouver, B.C., Coast Capital Savings created "B.C.'s largest greeting card" to "thank" Canadian banks for the fees being charged. Consumers could sign the people-sized card that was placed on the street, and share their own message. Employees handed out T-shirts reading, "I Love Fees."
• Poland's credit unions, meanwhile, infuriated the country's bankers with billboards and other media referring to the economic recession that read, "Don't blame us! We're not banks."
