A new multiyear partnership between Michigan Legacy Credit Union and ATM technology company FCTI is putting customized ads for the credit union’s products and services on ATM screens at 7-Elevens throughout the United States, according to an announcement from the partners.
The Pontiac, Michigan-based credit union, which has $183 million in assets and about 22,000 members, is able to design the look and feel of the ads, determine at what point in the ATM transaction the ads display and choose the products or services it advertises. The program includes the ability to target by location, set campaign start and end dates, as well as run multiple campaigns at the same time.
“When the program was brought to my attention, it was pretty intriguing,” Michigan Legacy Marketing Manager Crystal Gracz told CU Times. “It caught my attention just from the sheer simplicity of it and the volume of ATMs that it could target.”
Gracz said the screen headers, buttons, backgrounds, transaction screens and “Please wait” screens are all customizable.
“I can also have anything I want printed on the receipt should the member choose to print. Obviously some do, some don’t. I do find typically, though, from a consumer standpoint, if they are using a foreign ATM, 90% of the time they’ll print the receipt,” she noted.
The program went live in October, and the credit union has a graphic designer who does much of the ad creation in-house, Gracz said.
In the third quarter, the credit union promoted a certificate of deposit special; for the fourth quarter it’s promoting holiday loans, she added.
The ads currently only display when ATM customers use one of the credit union’s cards. But Gracz noted the credit union does have the ability to target non-CU cards.
“That’s touchy ground in the credit union world, as you know,” she noted. “Should we choose that in the future, it will not let us target a CO-OP network credit union. So if the credit union is within the network, they are untouchable. Everyone else would be.”
Gracz said her credit union’s program is a way to get in front of members who prefer to do things remotely or who live far away from a branch.
“If they are not a social media person that follows what we’re doing, they really don’t know what we have happening. They don’t know what our current promotions are. They don’t know what our specials are,” she explained.
ATM targeted marketing displays are still relatively uncommon. Less than a third of ATMs have them, according to a recent survey by KAL ATM Software. Almost one in five ATM industry members in that survey said they expect their ATMs to offer targeted marketing in the next few years, however.