Identity developed for Consumer Driven Innovation, a retail design firm.
Credit Union Refresh
For many reasons, Southeastern Federal Credit Union was taking “Federal” out of their name. Seems simple enough, but when you’re a financial institution with numerous branches, ATM locations and a plethora of branded institutional materials, the change can be a daunting task. Knowing everything would need to change, the decision was made to look into a new brand exercise to work through just how far SFCU was willing to move away from their current look. The designs would specifically attempt to make the icon “break out” of its borders and be more dynamic in appearance.
Ethic had already reworked many of SFCU’s brand elements over the past year. We had also just launched their new website and a general awareness campaign – so we new the logo refresh couldn’t be a drastic departure. To add to the mix of obstacles, Southeastern is in a tough credit union market with several well-established community banks and many false preconceptions about credit unions in general. How far should we push then? In the end, through several rounds of exploration of color, iconography and type, the decision was in; minus stronger, more workable colors and subtle changes in type, the logo would stay the same. We could consider the exercise a failure on our part to “woo” them into change. Change would provide us with plenty of new work. Honestly, while we all loved the work we created, any drastic change would be a costly marketing challenge setting everyone back to where we had started the year before… Time to move forward and woo the community with targeted campaigns featuring great rates and undeniable customer service.
Community Growth Campaign
In 2014, Ascentra built upon the exciting new brand look we developed in 2013 and created a campaign focused solely on new member growth. In addition to attracting new members, their goal was to become their primary financial institution. Ascentra did this by encouraging new members to sign up for direct deposit when opening a checking account. They put their value proposition “Listening, caring, doing what’s right” into action during the member drive with an incentive centered around giving back to the community. For every new member that opened a checking account with direct deposit, Ascentra donated $25 to the school of the new member’s choice. If the member did not have a school of choice, Ascentra donated the $25 to the Children’s Miracle Network University of Iowa Children’s Hospital.
In this campaign we continued the “paper city” look and began to give “Franklin” – our “Switch” campaign mascot – a bigger role in our marketing efforts. Franklin represents everyone who is fed up with banks and are looking for a change in how they bank. We developed a social marketing opportunity that featured human-sized Franklin silhouettes with a cut-out a new members face. The large Franklins were put in each branch and members were encouraged to snap a picture of themselves as Franklin and upload it to their social media pages with the hashtag “#Switch2Ascentra”. This member-generated campaign content exposed Ascentra to more potential new members and gave them a way to track their reach. To further enhance the retention of the “Switch2Ascentra” campaign, we created a seven foot tall mascot/costume and sent a real, live version of Franklin out into the community to spread the Ascentra message. You can see him here.
We know that switching financial institutions is a hassle for most people. To help them overcome that obstacle and make switching easier, Ethic designed and developed a “Fresh Start Kit” to facilitate the process. The kit was made available in branch and online. Creating those tools was only half the battle though. Ascentra also deployed a team dedicated to helping members through the transition and connected them with our most popular automatic withdrawal vendors which made things even easier on our new members.
The promotion ended in great success with continuing on-going public relations through local media, social media and area schools. A total of $25,175 was donated, with $14,775 given to area schools and $10,400 was donated to the Children’s Miracle Network University of Iowa Children’s Hospital.
Switch Marketing Blitz included TV, Radio, Print Ads, Banner Ads, Post Cards, Statement Stuffers, Billboards and social media advertising and marketing.