Almost a year ago to the day, Seattle Metropolitan Credit Union unveiled a new type of promotion never before seen in the financial industry. They asked people, “If we gave you $10? What would you do for someone else?” For their answers, the credit union gave away $10 to people — free — with the assignment to “pay it forward.”

The credit union gave $10 to 182 people, awarding a $1,000 prize to one. For a $2,820 investment, the credit union yielded $1.3 million in tracked PR value.

Skip ahead a year, and you can see other credit unions have clearly taken note. At least three other credit unions — one in Canada and two in the United States — have recently deployed the “Pay It Forward” promotion. It would seem the “pay it forward” concept has transcended itself, creating ripples up through the industry and not just down from one credit union.

Servus Credit Union: ‘Feel Good Ripple’

The credit union then wants you to share your “feel good deeds” on their website. For each story someone shares, they are entered to win one of ten $500 donations. There’s already been over 180 “feel good deeds” submitted. You can read them by clicking here.

The initiative has its own dedicated microsite, feelgoodripple.ca. Overall, the site delivers a contemporary take on retro-70s themes, subconsciously tapping our inner-hippie. The site is rich with creative, branded language like “keep the ripple alive,” and “let’s make ripples together.” There’s even a “Ripple Counter.”

“We’re asking you to make someone’s day. Anyone’s day. All in the spirit of community. Help a stranger carry groceries to their car. Give a calling card to someone far from home. Volunteer to walk dogs for an animal shelter. Do something. Anything! Make someone feel good and inspire them to do the same for someone else.”

The site has built-in functions for people to share the Feel Good Ripple with others via popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Click on the hotlink to share via Twitter, and a new window will appear with an auto-populated tweet: “Join the movement. Make someone’s day and inspire them to do the same for someone else. #ripple http://feelgoodripple.ca”

“This concept of sharing reinforces our strong cooperative beliefs,” the Feel Good Ripple microsite says. “This demonstrates just how different we are from the banks.”

Servus Credit Union’s slogan is “Feel good about your money,” so there seems to be nice brand alignment with this promotion.

Tonawanda Valley FCU – Pay It Forward

The credit union is deploying an almost identical version of Seattle Metropolitan’s original Feel Good promotion.

At a special event this Thursday (October 15th), anyone who answers this question on video gets $10: “If TVFCU gave you $10, what would you do for someone else?”

A panel will select 10 finalists, whose videos will be posted on the credit union’s website. The public will vote on the best idea, and the winner will be awarded “$1,000 to use however they wish in contributing toward their cause.”

Educational Credit Union – Pay It Forward

Same basic strategy here, only it’s $20 free, with the assignment to “create your ripple and pay it forward.”

Video responses to the challenge will be posted on the credit union’s YouTube account. The video with the most comments will pocket $500 and receive a $500 donation to their charity of choice.

Source: Thanks to Market Insights Insiders for bringing these three promotions to The Financial Brand’s attention via their Twitter account.

Seattle Metropolitan Credit Union’s “Intentionally Left Bank” campaign (see previous story by The Financial Brand here), is now moving into its second phase. The Washington-based financial institution is asking  consumers to share their stories about why they’ve chosen a credit union over a large corporate bank.

When the comment is posted to the credit union’s website, www.7principles.coop, the person receives a free “Intentionally Left Bank” t-shirt in the mail (while supplies last).

The credit union ordered around 500 shirts total. One week into the promotion and the credit union has mailed out about 250 so far. Each shirt cost approximately $6.00 to produce and $2.50 for postage and packaging).

“They’re a little more expensive than traditional swag, but far more rewarding than beach balls and pens,” noted Jill Vicente, CMO/Seattle Metropolitan.

Key Insight: The t-shirt itself is remarkably unbranded. It probably took some restraint to resist slapping the Seattle Metropolitan logo on the front, but the way the shirt was executed, it’s sure to trigger more double-takes and spark word-of-mouth conversations — more so than if a logo had been conspicuously placed.

The credit union received over 150 comments within 24 hours of launching the online promotion.

Seattle Metropolitan says it is hoping that dissatisfied bank customers will take their business to locally owned and operated credit unions.

“The public obviously feels very strongly about what is going on in the banking industry at their expense,” Seattle Metro’s Vicente said. “‘The Intentionally Left Bank’ campaign echoes the frustration of people in our community.”

Many of the comments talk about impersonal customer service, difficulty obtaining loans, high fees, and problems related to awkward corporate re-branding.

One Seattle Metropolitan member, Luke M. wrote, “I left my bank because it (Washington Mutual) had such a role in the whole subprime mortgage catastrophe. The bank went bust, the CEOs made millions, employees lost their retirement funds, and people all over the country lost their homes.”

Key Insight: You have to offer people something of value in exchange for meaningful contributions to your social media efforts. All too many financial institutions think people will simply rush in to help them “build a community,” but “What’s In It For ME???” If Seattle Metro had naively assumed people would just voluntarily flock to their website to rant about banks with nothing in return, the credit union would have been waiting a long time before it saw 150 quality submissions.

Seattle Metropolitan is advertising itself as Seattle’s local, not-for-profit alternative to large, corporate banks. Last fall, the credit union handed out $10 free to 182 people with no other condition than to “pay it forward.”

BANNER AD

PILES OF T-SHIRTS READY TO GO OUT IN THE MAIL

THE SEATTLE METRO TEAM
Jill Vicente, who is quoted in this article, is hiding in the back (under the “4834″ sign).

“Intentionally left bank,” is the only thing Seattle Metro Credit Union’s billboard says.
How many financial institutions run billboards that look this uncluttered?
(Note: This is actually a full-color photo. That’s what Seattle looks like in winter.)

Seattle Metro Credit Union is running a simple-yet-clever brand-building ad campaign, Intentionally Left Bank, that twists popular idioms such as “fill in the blank” into tongue-in-cheek expressions about lousy banking relationships.

The campaign is designed to complement the credit union’s “7 Principles,” a philosophy built around the idea that a financial institution doesn’t have to be self-serving.

The campaign’s media strategy relies heavily on outdoor. Eight billboards will rotate in four-week cycles during the first and second quarter. Ads will also run on the sides of 16 Metro busses. Full-page ads will appear in Seattle Metropolitan magazine, The Stranger and Conscious Choice magazine over the same period. T-shirts are coming next.

All-in-all, this is a fairly sizeable campaign for a credit union with just over $500 million in assets.

“Fill in the Bank”

“Heart” will start running next week, right in time for Valentine’s Day.

While the ads themselves don’t ask for people to share stories about their bank breakups — there isn’t even a web address on one billboard — the open comment section on the credit union’s website was created for that purpose. So far, the credit union’s received 24 comments, including pithy anecdotes about people’s failed banking relationships.

Some people stopped by just to comment on the campaign’s creativity. One person called the campaign “witty and smart,” while another declared, “It’s corny and I LOVE it!”

All the work on the campaign including concept and design was done by Seattle Metro’s in-house marketing group. “I’m really proud of our team,” said Jill Vicente, CMO and VP/ Seattle Metropolitan Credit Union.

“Wrapping the ‘7 Principles’ around our credit union – both internally and externally – has been a huge task,” Vicente told The Financial Brand. “It feels good to see it evolving with each project.”

Seattle Metro’s last promotion garnered mounds of media coverage after the credit union announced it was giving away free money.

Seattle Metro Credit Union wanted to know what socially-conscious people might do with a little extra money, so it asked them: “If we gave you $10? What would you do for someone else?” For their answers, the credit union gave away $10 to people — free — with the assignment to “pay it forward.”

The credit union also spontaneously gave 8 people $100 for having “really good ideas,” according to Jill Vicente, CMO and VP/ Seattle Metropolitan Credit Union.

At this one-day event, participants had to sign a waiver that allowed the credit union to videotape their intentions, which were then posted on YouTube. People then voted for their favorite. The winner wins $1,000 to donate to the cause of their choice.

Over 300 people showed up at the event Vicente said, and they filmed about 110 of them.

Here’s one video, from “David,” who says he’d use his $10 to buy what’s needed for a bake sale, then roll the money over and do it again, so he can give the money to a kid’s program:

“In total, we gave away $1820,” said Vicente.

The credit union culled down the videos to the top seven videos. These will be posted at the credit union’s 7principles.coop microsite for voting by the general public.

The credit union also wanted to see if folks really followed through with their “pay-it-forward” promises.

“During the event we gave participants a pre-paid postcard, an email address and a phone number,” Vicente said. “That way, they could follow up on their ‘pay-it-forward’ experience, allowing us to post excerpts as part of the voting and announcement of winners.”

At the 7principles.coop microsite supporting the promotion, the credit union has a plug for its Feel Good Checking account, which pays 7.71% APY* on the first $500. They also donate $20 to one of the credit union’s non-profit partners when you open a Feel Good Checking account. You choose which organization receives the donation.

Key Takeaway: Always look for opportunities to link products with  social media campaigns.

Seattle Metropolitan Credit Union was featured in nearly every local media outlet, including KOMO/ABC, King 5/NBC, the Seattle P.I. and more. The story was picked up nationally on CNN, and positive feedback has come from all over the place.

“We’ve had calls from non-members in other cities as far as Bellingham and Spokane telling us they paid $10 forward on their own,” Vicente said.

[UPDATE: Jill Vicente says the credit union yielded over $1.3 million in PR value. She thinks they got more than that, but they had to stop paying the clipping service because it was getting too expensive. Wow.]

Impressive results. Unfortunately, this is all the data SMCU could afford to track.

Why all the attention? The credit union thinks it has everything to do with the novelty of a credit union giving out money at a time when banks are on life support.

A grim economy isn’t the credit union’s motivation. On its blog, the credit union explained the history and timing of the promotion: “We began planning this in July, and only because the logistics of giving away money proved somewhat tricky did we push the event back to October. This didn’t happen because of the economy, but rather in spite of it.”

Key Takeaway: This a great example of how a simple, inexpensive idea can balloon into a huge PR bonanza. How much PR could you generate with $2,820 in cash, a camera crew and a free YouTube account?

Reality Check: “Cheap” and “simple” does not translate to “easy.” In fact, almost the opposite is true. Seattle Metro invested lots of time, energy and manpower into their promotion. Coming up with the idea is only the first step. You’ve got to plan ahead, anticipate all your opportunities and provide adequate marketing and HR support in order to maximize these kinds of PR-style promotions.

Vicente adds this final observation: “One outcome that I didn’t expect was the incredible upsurge in employee morale and brand buy-in. I had one employee come into my office after the event, crying, saying she was so proud to work here.”