A Financial Experiment Without Yelling

I’ll admit that I enjoy watching locally-produced commercials. I’m not sure who decided that giant yellow or red letters were mandatory to sell cars or furniture. There’s some kind of strange and awkward entertainment value for me watching this one particular local car dealer wave a U.S. flag around and screaming at me about the great deals on Ford trucks while he’s driving a tank over old cars. This particular commercial series always ends with a U.S. flag fading into the background as he salutes (still yelling), “AS ALWAYS, WE PROUDLY SUPPORT AND SERVE OUR VETERANS!”

OK, message received. This car dealer has obviously done some market research and knows what the central part of the state wants to hear. He knows his audience loves the following: The U.S. flag, large fonts, the military and I guess trucks. Although that last item is literally the least-seen thing in the commercial.

Local commercials like this one are exactly the reason I enjoy logging onto the Hulu streaming service when I travel. Also, it’s why I don’t pay the extra money each month to not show commercials – I want to see them!

As you may know, like your smartphone, Hulu knows exactly where you are. No matter where I am, I can see the local commercials while watching The Goldbergs. As you may also know, these commercial spots on Hulu are extremely targeted commercials and that makes it much more interesting when listening to the ad copy.

I’ve noticed, in each time zone or state I’ve been in, that more credit unions are taking advantage of the Hulu ad purchase. PenFed and Navy Federal have commercials out there, as well as other local credit unions. And it’s nice to see and learn all of the local messages credit unions use for this targeted audience watching TV on their phones, laptops or Roku.

But I wanted to point out one significant and very interesting ad buy that has followed me around. It’s from a financial institution called Aspiration.

As far as I’ve seen, there’s only one version of this commercial that’s running nationwide on Hulu. The spot is heavy-handed on the millennial/Gen X visuals of very young consumers (in their late teens to early 20s) who want to do banking “on their terms.”

Aspiration, if you’ve never heard of it, is a fully online/smartphone bank that’s FDIC-insured, has 256-bit bank-level SSL encryption and offers zero fees on all ATMs. In fact, they say that consumers can decide what to pay when it comes to banking fees – that includes paying nothing.

“At Aspiration, you pay us what you think is fair,” the gentle and casual voiceover person says (no yelling). The marketing of Aspiration is appealing on a number of levels. Here’s a sample of the lines from the commercial and website:

“You can use any ATM in the universe for free!”

“Goodbye, greed. Hello, good.”

“Save money. Save the planet.”

“Big banks charge the average American over $300 in fees. Aspiration trusts you to pay only the fee you think we deserve – even if it’s zero.”

I was blown away by some of the marketing messages that were truly and almost nearly word-for-word phrases used by the credit union and cooperative communities. They have a strong focus on people and the planet. The Aspiration website states, “Did you know that big banks spend the money they earn from you on lobbyists and campaign contributions to get politicians to do their bidding? We commit to donating 10% of earnings to charities helping struggling Americans build a better life.”

If you download the app, they use a “People and Planet” score to show consumers how the places they shop “treat employees and the environment.”

So yes, each time I watch The Goldbergs or I’m in a hotel watching The Good Place, I hope the commercial comes on so I can see it again because, holy smokes, it’s a great big pile of excellent marketing messages.

As I’ve said before, I’ve had some experience dealing with Hulu ads, I’ve walked through the process with them, and I’ve seen just how targeted these ads and marketing messages can be (if you know how to write good marketing messages). And that’s why I’ve been so impressed by what Aspiration is aspiring to become for the generations behind us.

They know Wells Fargo is a disaster and, like many of us believe, they know it’s only a matter of time before their base dies off and a younger generation will demand more from banks and bankers. Citi is attempting a similar nationwide marketing message with the creation of its boutique branches. But no financial institution has gone as far in their message as Aspiration, as far as I can tell.

I’ve been a credit union member since 1996. My kids are credit union members, largely because of me, the local credit union partnership and the branch inside their high school. Now out of high school, they just don’t want to bother to switch over to a new FI. And I completely get that way of thinking.

But, for those younger people going out on their own, the appeal of Aspiration’s marketing messages, and convenience and control, just might be too much to ignore.

As we all grow older, we’re constantly faced with our own stubbornness about believing the way things were done in school, with our finances and purchases, and even how we created a home was the right way to do it. If we step back and look at it, we were just making it up as we went along and did our best. There is no single right way to do things. And, I think, if we let our kids and these next generations coming up make their own choices, we might find that messages of giving them control and choices fit their lives better when it comes to their money.

I’ve decided to do an experiment with Aspiration and see how it all really works, or doesn’t work. I’ll share the results with you in the coming months.

Michael Ogden is executive editor for CU Times. He can be reached at mogden@cutimes.com.