Case Study: CUNA Credit Union Marketing and Business Development Conference 2011
Powerful People

Background:

Each year, credit union marketers and business development officers attend the CUNA Conference to learn, engage and get inspired. This year, the conference theme was innovation.

Campaign:

CUNA asked Third Degree to develop a teaser campaign for the conference. They wanted credit union marketers to immediately put the conference on their calendar and convince a possibly skeptical CEO to let their business development officer attend.

Audience:

After years of long-lasting relationships with credit unions from coast to coast, we have a strong first-hand knowledge of a credit union marketer's daily workload. We interpreted CUNA's Innovation theme as working smarter, doing more with less and coming together to figure out solutions. We wanted the message to be bold, uncomplicated and able to resonate with our audience. A creative symbol for a sense of being the small, but strong innovator.

Direction:

That symbol is the ant. The ant is not to be underestimated. It is one of nature's strongest creatures. Together, an ant colony is incredibly powerful, resilient and innovative. We created a teaser video hosted on YouTube, embedded on CUNA's website and distributed via email. A triple-fold mailer with an ant die cut made a splash early in the campaign. We developed an email campaign to keep the momentum going for the months leading up to the conference. A suite of web banners, twitter backgrounds and brand collaterals rounded out the teaser kit.

Results:

Credit union representatives traveled to the conference from 49 states, with an average asset size over $600M. This was the largest turnout in the conference's nearly twenty-year history.