Do what you love, make a difference, and stop the boring.

Five signs I might actually be growing up

Does anyone really think of themselves as a grownup? I’m definitely an adult, but I still see myself as a kid. I still make dumb mistakes, I still say stupid stuff, and I still wish I had more social finesse. I sometimes wonder out loud what I’m going to be when I grow up. And…

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people are loyal to people, not institutions. 

Dare to be human

Go take a look at the web sites or marketing materials for a few extremely large companies. Take your pick — banks, car makers, restaurants, retailers, or manufacturing. Check out their social media postings. Where are the people? The real people, not the retouched unrelated models portraying the Perfect American Family. With very few exceptions, you won’t…

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are free services appreciated, or pretty much just expected?

Is Free just another word for Not Worth Paying For?

Credit unions have long championed giving certain services away for absolutely nothing: free checking, free bill pay, free ATM access, free shared branching, etc., etc. But are free services appreciated, or pretty much just expected? As designers and marketers, we get hit up all the time for free work. This charity needs a logo and this non-profit…

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They're the ones that have your brand tattooed on their body.

Brand Loyalists are wimps. Build a Legion of Brand Fanatics.

Sure, Brand Loyalists boost your bottom line, talk about your brand, recommend it to their friends, use it on a daily basis, even teach their kids how to use it. And most companies would be happy to have them. Not me. I think you can do better. I think you can build your own legion of…

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Everyone can provide a plain old ordinary checking account or car loan for plain old ordinary average people.

Go find some weirdos

Quick, tell me about your members. No, not the average members. They’re boring. And you already know plenty about them. And so does everyone else. Find some weirdos. People out on the fringe. The ones who were in New Guinea last week, and are currently somewhere in Kazakhstan. The family thinking seriously about what kinds…

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Take the challenge. Your members will thank you.

Is your home page a welcome mat or a clown car?

I challenge you to go to a site you’ve never visited before. To make it even more random, ask a coworker or friend what their favorite site is, and go check it out. Now I’d like you to be objective and ask yourself the following questions as you look at the home page: Does it…

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If I weren’t in Marketing, I’d probably be…

I never thought I’d be creating marketing for credit unions when I was growing up. I had no idea what advertising was, or a logo, or that people got paid for designing the cereal boxes I looked at every morning. Heck, I didn’t even know what a graphic designer was when I went to college.…

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your obsession with kitten videos and British sit-coms just make you real.

Incredibly bad marketing advice

We’ve always tried to give you good marketing advice in order to help you grow your credit union. But where’s the fun in that? Besides, it’s late, and I want to go home, so here is some incredibly bad marketing advice instead. Enjoy. 1) Your logo isn’t sacred. Tweak it as much as you want.…

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change the objective of your marketing from selling to helping

Would your members pay for your marketing?

What’s that you say? Pay? To receive our direct mail, emails and statement inserts? Uh, I don’t think so. Okay, then let’s look at this a different way. Would your members be willing to pay, say $5, for some information that would teach them how to save $50/month on a car loan? Absolutely. Over the…

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What's it going to take to get you to do something about it?

Are you defending your pain?

Life is full of annoyances. Everyone of us has something that has been nagging at our brains, something we know is wrong and just needs to be fixed. That drive you kind of crazy, day after day. At home, it might be a squeaky door, a burned out light bulb where you need to haul…

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