What Gen-Y Knows About Banks & Credit Unions
If you want to know how Gen-Y feels about banking and financial institutions, just ask them. That’s what these three vendors in the financial industry did. They grabbed their cameras and hit the streets. Some of these videos were shot over a year ago. But has anything changed since then?
“What Is a Credit Union?”
Producer: Callahan & Assoiciates
Running Time: 4:49
Callahan & Associates sent its CYouth team out to ask Gen-Y what they know — and don’t know — about banks and credit unions. And guess what? Gen-Y doesn’t know the difference the difference between banks and credit unions.
Key Excerpt: Interviewer: “What do you think would be the biggest thing potentially holding you back from joining a credit union?” Gen-Y answer: “Umm, I’ve just never had any knowledge of them before. I’m not familiar with them.”
“This is Generation Y”
Producer: Weber Marketing Group
Running Time: 4:06
Weber Marketing Group created this video with a series of brief Gen-Y interview vignettes capturing Gen-Y thoughts about financial institutions.
Key Excerpts:
- “Our parents set up our accounts.”
- “When I go in to talk to [my bank], they aren’t friendly or helpful whatsoever. They talk to me like I’m stupid, pretty much.”
- “Honestly, I don’t know very much about credit unions.”
- “I’ve heard there are lots of benefits with being at a credit union, but I don’t have any idea what those are.”
“I Know Y – Getting to Know You”
Producer: The Garland Group
Running Time: 6:50
Major takeaways:
- Gen Y isn’t really clear how they choose their financial institutions.
- Gen-Y wants improved performance and functionality for online banking platforms.
All content © 2013 by The Financial Brand and may not be reproduced by any means without permission.
Thanks for these terrific videos. They do more than a pile of reports ever could to spotlight the opportunity Credit Unions have to build relationships with Gen Y.
Carol Phillips
@carol_phillips
Thanks Carol.
For those who don’t know Carol, she is a marketing professor at Notre Dame. She specializes in Gen-Y marketing. She has a brilliant blog, and you can follow her on Twitter for excellent insights into the Gen-Y mind.
b: http://millennialmarketing.com/
t: http://twitter.com/carol_phillips
We saw this same result from focus groups across all age demographics three years ago; the consumer doesn’t understand credit unions. I believe this owes partly to credit unions’ tenacity in claiming for years that they are “not” banks. Unfortunately, the consumer categorized banks, S&Ls, savings banks, et al into a group of “financial institutions” which they understand to offer banking services. In another group, they place credit unions, which they don’t understand at all. When the consumer goes shopping she finds all those other institutions on the “banking services” shelf while we in the CUs have placed ourselves across the store on the laundry detergent aisle.
This makes the marketing job for CUs twofold: 1) bring the consumer up to speed on CUs and help position ourselves on the “banking services” shelf, and 2) pitch our value proposition.
This division of understanding will become even more challenging with Gen Y’s as we work to discern from where they are taking their buying decision cues.
Excellent videos. I agree 100% with Carol – so much more effective than a “white paper”. I would love to see one geared solely towards high school students ages 16-18!