Buzz From Haircuts: ‘Hot Hair Challenge’
This summer, Northwest Resource Federal Credit Union launched a buzz campaign that gave hair stylists in downtown in Portland, Oregon the chance to win a gift card for their best hairstyles.
To kick off its “Hot Hair Challenge,” the credit union distributed branded cameras to local hair salons, encouraging them to take pictures of their best haircuts.
In total, about 30 cameras were produced, at a cost of $4.58 each.
Near the end of last month, cameras were picked up, the film was developed and pictures added to the a special Flickr photo-sharing site. Participating salons got their name and logo added to the promotion’s Flickr page.
The winning hair style/stylist will be chosen based on the number of comments photos receive. Sixteen entries were received. The winning stylist gets $100 gift card, and the person with the winning hair style gets $100 to spend at their salon.
There’s no mention of this promotion on the nrfcu.org site yet, but PSST! Marketing, the word-of-mouth agency behind the promo, says there will be soon, asking people to vote.
Bottom Line: While this kind of promotion isn’t going to generate monster results, it can’t hurt. It gets people talking (in hair salons), and builds name awareness for Northwest Resource — a huge challenge almost every credit union faces. It’s fun, inexpensive, doesn’t take a lot of work and — for those who participate — it’s likely to leave a happy little halo on the credit union’s brand.
If your financial institution serves a small, specific community, you might think of how you could change the flavor of a camera-centric promotion. Where could you leave cameras? What could you ask people to photograph?
BRANDED CAMERA
FLYER
Standard 8.5×11, with instructions on the back (click to enlarge).
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What an unlikely connection, but how appealing. It shows that you don’t have to just target “moms” or “genY” that you can find niche audiences almost anywhere you look… if you look hard enough… and if you have brave credit union clients.
This is what innovation is all about. Often times, innovation isn’t the result of big campaigns that cost a lot of money or campaigns that bring huge measurable results. This campaign is brilliant. Again, another example of how small banks and credit unions are kicking butt with social media.