Gas for $1.99 Per Gallon, Courtesy of Digital FCU
This morning at 7:00, people in Worcester, Massachusetts, started lining up at a Gulf gas station to fill up for $1.99 per gallon, courtesy of Digital FCU.
The promotion is only running for 6 hours. It ends at 1:00.
DCU says they are running the promotion to help ease the pain at the pump for their community. (Yeah, that, and to reach out to hundred of potential new members.)
There will be a big, shiny halo around DCU for the next few days. Today they are local heroes. Tomorrow, they’ll be the talk of the town.
Brilliant. Simply brilliant.
Bottom Line: Assuming the gas station can serve around 150 people per hour with each person getting around 10 gallons, the credit union will only have to reimburse the gas station for around 9,000 gallons – around $20,000. And you have to wonder if the gas station isn’t chipping in a little for this tremendous opportunity.
It doesn’t cost a dime to market this, because $1.99 gas sells itself. The credit union will get thousands of dollars in PR coverage. They’ll probably make the news on all 3-4 local TV networks, plus a possible cover story in the local paper.
[UPDATE: The event got tons of media coverage.]In the meantime, there’s going to be a few hundred hot new member leads. All the credit union needs to do is have a few staff stand around a gas station being nice and answering questions for a few hours. Easy.
The only odd thing is that there’s no mention of the promotion at the DCU website. Unfortunate, considering the spike in traffic they can expect.
Source: WWLP, via Randy Schultz at Weber Marketing Group
