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2014 Excellence winners honored at Marketing and Business Development Council Conference
MADISON, WI (March 17, 2014) — Excellence Award winners from the CUNA Marketing & Business Development Council were announced during the Council’s 21st annual conference, March 12-15 in Orlando, FL.
The awards recognize outstanding new marketing and business development approaches with potential for universal application across the industry. Without regard to asset size, a panel of judges selected winners based on strategy, process, application, and results. Representatives from the winning credit unions were present at the conference to accept their award. This year’s winners are (by category):
- Business Development: FAA Credit Union, Oklahoma City, OK, for its Credit Score Analysis program. This program is designed to help individuals save money by evaluating their credit report line-by-line to determine: 1) why the score is high or low, 2) how to raise their score, if needed, and 3) calculate current interest rates on all loans in order to find the member the best deal for their score today and what that savings will be once their score is improved. FAA also conducted seminars with this information condensed into 1-hour sessions as well as a website that allowed them to calculate possible savings on their own.
- Community Outreach and/or Political Advocacy: Service 1st Federal Credit Union, Danville, PA, for its Community Outreach – Raising $35,000 for Local Charities. Their goal was to support the community by making a donation of at least $7,500 each to three charities. The credit union chose to support Janet Weis Children’s Hospital, SUNCOM Industries, Inc. and the Montour Area Recreation Commission (MARC) by hosting a Duck Derby along the Susquehanna River. Thousands of rubber ducks raced to the finish line and raised money for the community.
- Miscellaneous: American Airlines Federal Credit Union, Fort Worth, TX, for its Branded Partner Debit Card Beta. The credit union launched a debit card branded for Virgin America, a client who directly competes with their sponsor company, American Airlines. This card is fully branded in the partner’s image and absent of any elements that would tie it to American Airlines by the consumer. American Airlines FCU benefited greatly from the project, positively affecting membership penetration, increasing checking penetration, and significantly increasing debit card unit transactions and dollar volumes for existing account and new account holders.
- Miscellaneous: Bellwether Community Credit Union, Manchester, NH, for its Easy Awards Program – The credit union rolled out their brand, Bellwether – Where Easy Adds Up!, along with four pillars of the brand, and provided training to employees. The credit union wanted to ramp up and reinforce the effort, refresh the brand with the staff, and integrate the “DIME” (“Did I Make it EASY?”) rewards program with employees (in which coins can be saved up, and when the employee collects 20, they can be turned in to receive a $50 gift card). Employees received a coin imprinted with the Bellwether logo and four pillars, in recognition of performing a task, project/assignment, or a new idea that made things easier for members. The program is an opportunity to emphasize the brand, recognize employees, and re-energize the team to live the brand.
For more information on the 2014 Excellence Award winners, go to www.cunamarketingcouncil.org, and click on the “Events” link, located on the “Events” pull-down menu.
About CUNA Marketing and Business Development Council
The CUNA Marketing and Business Development Council is a member-led organization comprised of 1,100+ credit union professionals across the United States. The Council strives to provide superior educational and networking opportunities to help its members be recognized in the credit union industry as the premier experts in credit union marketing, business development, and related disciplines. The CUNA Marketing & Business Development Council is one of the six organizations that make up the CUNA Councils, a network of more than 5,800 credit union professionals. For more information, visit www.cunamarketingcouncil.org or www.cunacouncils.org.