Our thinking is rooted in the end customer and their perception of your business. The O’Brien Voice of the Customer study, or o.VoC, is a holistic look at your customer experience from your customer's perspective. We analyze the experience from the point when the customer considers your product to the point when they throw it away. The o.VoC puts a spotlight on important problems, the ones that adversely affect your customer relationships, and provides specific, actionable remedies.
We recently kicked off SAC Federal Credit Union’s marketing campaign with an integrated media blitz that included TV and radio spots, billboards, print ads and a dedicated conversion microsite. Lots of credit goes out to SAC CEO Gail Deboer and her team for their vision and trusting our crew with it. It’s been a long time in the making, so we’re all excited to see finished work hit the public. Our work with SAC began last summer with an oVoC study and Brand Landscape Review. Among other things, we discovered that SAC’s somewhat dated, military look reinforces the perception that SAC is military only, even though SAC has been open to everyone in the area for years. The issue wasn’t limited to SAC: people who didn’t already bank at credit unions didn’t generally know how they were different from banks, why they would want to bank at a credit union, or that they could even join. To overcome these challenges, SAC needed a new identity and a supporting campaign.
We wanted SAC’s identity to appeal to a wider, more progressive audience without abandoning their heritage entirely, so the new logo evolves some central features of the old logo into a fresh modern design.
To get the most bang for our buck, we targeted the 70% or so of people who aren’t already using a credit union. They’re the best candidates for new membership because they have so much to gain from joining SAC: better rates, lower fees, greater stability, and a volunteer board of directors looking out for them. Our campaign shows these people the fundamental difference between credit unions and banks, lets them know they can join, and gives concrete benefits as proof. If they like what they see, want to learn more, and ultimately make the move, they can go to a dedicated conversion site.
We’ve put together some video and images from various parts of the campaign below; as more work hits the media in the coming months we’ll update.
Shane checking the shot at SAC’s South Omaha Branch.
View of the full setup.
Setting up in the Old Market Passageway.
Big thanks to Patrick’s for letting us shoot on very short notice; due to bad weather, one of our outdoor shots simply was not going to work. We talked to them Sunday night, they called the owner’s daughter, and we had go ahead the next morning. Great little grocery store and cool people, if you live near downtown definitely check it out.
Our video/sound team for the shoot: Jake (aka Sipowitz, an old friend of ours) and Melby, from Media Craft Communications in Minneapolis.
If you’d like to see the full gallery of production still, check out the gallery here.
Metal signage on the cutting table.
Building signs ready for transport at the factory.
I-80 billboard.
We went with simple, current event driven messages to reinforce the bank vs. credit union comparison that we draw in the TV and Radio spots. Outdoor billboards and Print ads take a no nonsense approach. If its truth, why mess around with fluffy advertising speak?
