Pet Peeves - Stop Marketing With Colored Copy Paper!
Ok, here is a new segment - Pet Peeves.
I usually keep things like this to inside my circle of friends or colleagues, but since we are all in the same boat, I think I can share with you.
STOP USING ASTROBRITE AND FLOURESCENT PAPER TO MAKE SIGNS!
Guys, please, this looks ridiculous.
I know it is cost effective, but it is a brand killer. Some of you might be thinking, “Ok Tony, you are a credit union marketing agency and you just want us to use designers for every little thing.”
Nope! That is not true. I will admit that it would make my life easier to have the sudden inflow of crazy little design projects for all your sideline projects and services. Plus it gives me added insight into how you are establishing yourself with your members outside of your traditional marketing. But, that is not my motivation. Retaining what brand equity you have and protecting you from yourself, that is my motivation.
I see it everywhere. Bright yellow sheets of paper taped to branch doors, teller windows, in literature holders – all over the freakin place. It looks like crap and it diminishes the integrity of the CU’s brand.
There is a credit union that I am a member of, but do not work with. I always enjoyed visiting the branch. I had many friends and relatives that bank here (including my parents). Their V.P. of marketing retired or resigned (a very sweet lady). Immediately I started to notice some strange things.
Fluorescent paper – everywhere. “Get Pre-Approved For an Auto Loan Today” with clip-art of a little mid-80’s car on bright green paper. It was taped right to the glass door as I was walking in to make my car payment (I like to do it in person to do my own member experience research). I shuddered. To me, that is corner store marketing. Effectively it is the same thing as a Sharpie pen sign written on a scrap of cardboard. It would only be bad, had that been the only thing they did to their branch.
But it wasn’t. Two weeks later I was driving by the branch and in their long bank of windows facing the main road were dozens of these bright yellow and green sheets of paper spelling out “R-E-F-I-N-A-N-C-E - - Y-O-U-R - - H-O-M-E-!”.
This is like fingernails on a chalkboard.
I understand that the core SEG for this credit union was teachers and school employees – but what works in the classroom does not work in the real world.
Their branches are beautifully designed. They are modern with a good flow. They invested a boat load of money into establishing their brand. They ruined it with $4 of paper and black toner.
So a week later I go back into the branch to make my car payment. The fluorescent slips of eye poison have multiplied. There were literally twice as many sheets of paper taped all over any flat surface. All of the pages were posted in a variety of skewed positions. I guess the idea was to make them more noticeable. I suppose setting them on fire would have been equally effective and destructive.
But now, in the middle of the branch, displayed proudly, was a large, plastic playhouse that looks like it had been beat to hell by kids for 2 or 3 years then given a mildly effective scrubbing. It had a sign “Refinance your home today!”.
A piece of me died inside.
So, maybe it was just me. Maybe I am overly sensitive to credit union marketing. My dad is a cop and when he watches cop shows on TV – he is always quick to point out when the TV cop does something incorrectly. Is this what I am doing?
I could admit that if it weren’t for the phone calls. “Hey Tony, do you know what is going on at XYZ Credit Union? Are they going out of business?”. “Hey, what is with all the ghetto signs at the credit union? Are they closing? Should I get my money out?”
My dad, my family members, my friends and their family members who know what I do - they all called to get the inside scoop. Quite a few of these people had flashbacks to the savings and loans scandals from the 80’s. Unfortunately I didn’t have anything solid to share except that they have a new person in charge of marketing and maybe they are just trying to save some money. Now, I am not blaming the credit union. They are not the only ones doing this. I have seen this all over the country. You know who you are. I just want you to know what people think when you “Go Ghetto” with your marketing.
When the place that is in charge of your savings and investments and pretty much all your money starts to look like they are sinking – it tends to make you nervous. You begin to wonder if there is something wrong. You don’t want your credit union to look weak or financially unstable.
The Solution - Because there needs to be a solution...
So, the point of this post is, there are better ways to create inexpensive and simple “One Off” marketing pieces. Talk to your design staff. Talk to your agency about creating “Shells” that you can have any DTP person drop a nice picture into with a headline (all in your fonts and colors). Any designer worth their salt will be able to create a template or shell so that you can change the headline copy (leaving the formatting in place) and change a photo as long as you have a similar software package. Run them off on a color laser printer (you can get them at Office Max or Depot or Staples or Costco all day long for about $600).
But please, whatever you do…
No More Fluorescent Paper.
Popularity: 9% [?]
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
Jeffry, you are absolutely right. Unfortunately this critical responsibility is place in the good intentioned, yet sometimes misdirected, branch managers.
The credit union brand is far to delicate and important to leave open to misrepresentation. I have a quick example. Today, one of our project managers called a credit union. The receptionist put her on hold for over 12 minutes before she finally hung up.
The receptionist was not transferring the call, she answered the phone “Thank you for calling XYZ Credit Union, please hold.” and put her on hold.
If I were a member, this would burn my butt. This is a significant brand killer. They should change their tagline to “People helping people, sometimes, when we can.”
By the way, I enjoyed your presentation the other day. 
Thanks for playing along.
Pirate Marketing - that’s what we call branch managers using scotch tape and astrobrite paper and sharpie pens. It’s not 1977 people!!!
Arrrrrggghhhhhhh!!!!!
[...] site (which I love) and we have been discussing what she calls Pirate Marketing and I call Ghetto Marketing. The conversation has been great. We have been talking about all the crap that people do to their [...]
This may stem from a larger issue of letting branch managers handle their own branch merchandising. Even when branch managers do something that looks polished and professional, it’s almost a certainty that what’s in one branch won’t match what’s in another — resulting in members exposure to multiple “brand images.”