New Vancity campaign aimed at reversing drop in growth of credit union’s client base

Canada’s largest credit union is overhauling its brand to boost lagging membership growth.

Over the past few years, Vancity’s membership increase has steadily declined to less than 1% in 2010 from a peak of more than 9% in 2007, according to Business in Vancouver research.

By comparison, membership growth at Surrey’s Coast Capital Savings, B.C.’s second largest credit union by assets, has remained between 5% and 7%.

One of the reasons for Vancity’s declining growth rate has been a focus on streamlining its operations.

Its key initiatives over the years have included:

•divesting itself of non-core businesses such as the credit union’s insurance business and the retail operations of Citizens Bank;

•upgrading its aging banking technology; and

•implementing socially and environmentally sustainable purchasing policies and a living wage policy for staff.

Those internally-focused initiatives have paid off. Vancity reported a $6.4 million drop in overall operating expenses and record net earnings in 2010. But focusing on deepening member relationships and expanding membership has until now been a lower priority.

Vancity recently launched a multi-year “Make Good Money” marketing strategy, which hopes to bridge an apparent gap between its positive image in the community and its value as a financial institution.

Richard Seres, vice-president of marketing at Vancity, said research into the credit union’s brand showed that people generally had a good impression of Vancity because of its community work and progressive policies.

But the positive feeling associated with distributing millions of dollars each year to local non-profits hasn’t necessarily led to people choosing Vancity as their primary financial institution.

Vancity’s research found members with only one or two products like a chequing account or Visa card had decided to open those accounts, in part, because they believed in Vancity’s values and wanted to contribute to its community work.

But Pauline Hadley-Beauregard, a partner at Wasserman and Partners who worked on Vancity’s new campaign, noted, “When we dug deeper, we found out that these members took their serious banking business somewhere else.

“There was this sense that ‘I feel good about being [at Vancity], but I’m not sure they’re the place I should go to do my financial business,’ even though Vancity is competitive in that sphere.”

The same feeling resonated with non-members who might consider using a credit union. Vancity’s new campaign aims to make the connection that banking with the credit union is good for members and the community.

“We knew we were in the right area when the whole idea of ‘good money’ got people to think: ‘if this is good money, then what’s the alternative?’” Hadley-Beauregard said.

As part of the campaign, Vancity enlisted the support of its various customers and staff to illustrate its impact as a financial institution.

The website includes customer stories, and Vancity’s ads include members and staff rather than actors.

“We’ve taken an authentic, hyper-local approach,” said Hadley-Beauregard. “We found that people loved the concept of doing good things in the community, but they got very skeptical very fast about how it really works. So we knew it was important to have a lot of proof points.”

Seres said it was a coincidence that Vancity’s new campaign launched around the same time as the Occupy Wall Street movement, which led to one American woman promoting a Bank Transfer Day campaign to get people to move their money to a credit union.

“It’s certainly not intentional, but if what we’re trying to get across to people resonates, then great.” •