Tapping Into the Heart of Emotional Marketing

“Advertising is based on one thing – happiness,” Don Draper, a fictional advertising executive from the critically-acclaimed TV series “Mad Men,” said. “And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you are doing is OK. You are OK.”

In October 2015, the $2.8 billion Tech Credit Union in San Jose, Calif., launched its “Bank Happily Ever After” campaign that won numerous marketing industry accolades. But more importantly, it increased the credit union’s brand awareness, which led to record membership and new account activity, according to the cooperative’s advertising agency. Indeed, Tech CU’s Call Reports showed its emotional marketing campaign contributed, in part, to the cooperative’s growth in membership from 74,516 in 2015 to 79,688 in 2016, while loans increased from 16,810 totaling $1.3 billion in December 2015 to 22,371 totaling $1.5 billion by the end of 2016.

The logical facts that credit unions offer lower rates, lower fees and great service will connect with any consumer’s rational brain. However, as reams of research have proven, connecting with consumers’ emotions can motivate them to join a credit union or stay with their credit union.

When announcing its marketing campaign, Tech CU showed consumers how they can drop the negative emotions they had with their old bank and experience positive emotions with the credit union.

“People are frustrated with high loan rates and fees, and the lack of personal service they often get with big banks,” Tech CU said in a news release announcing the campaign. “They’re tired of being treated like a number by companies that don’t necessarily have their best interest at heart. It may sound cliché, but at Tech CU, we believe you should trust the company you bank with and that your experiences should be both pleasant and satisfying.”

Matt Purvis, principal of Purvis Management in Eugene, Ore., noted that CUNA’s “Open Your Eyes” marketing campaign, which is rolling out across the country, is well researched and very well put together. But the next questions for all credit union executives come after consumers’ eyes are opened: What do they see? What do they experience?

“Are those experiences different enough and compelling enough and memorable enough to cause them to leave the bank and join a credit union?” Purvis asked. “If those experiences, through marketing or any channel, are parallel to what consumers experienced through their old bank, then why would they join the credit union? After opening their eyes to credit unions, we now have to make sure we show them something that is unmistakably different and superior about credit unions. We know that emotions play a leading role in that.”

Purvis has been working on a rebrand project with the $127 million Go Energy Financial Credit Union in Tucker, Ga., which was previously known as Georgia Electrical Membership Cooperatives Federal Credit Union.

“When they worked through that change with us on the name and the rebrand, they also looked at their mission, vision and values. They tossed them out and their new concept is simply called ‘our pledge,’” Purvis said. “Their pledge is driven to be the best part of your day. I think that is a better mission statement because it signals that transformation from a typical banking product and service business to one that’s much more human, much more emotional, much more about you. How do we literally be the best part of your day to the best of our ability? That subtle shift changes the way the staff is motivated and changes the way they make all kinds of decisions at the credit union, and it’s a simpler way to communicate that unique, emotional commitment to all their members and of course prospective members.”

Bo McDonald, president of Your Marketing Co. in Greenville, S.C., has been working with the $21.7 million HopeSouth Federal Credit Union in Abbeville, S.C.

Like its namesake, the credit union does an amazing job of selling hope, McDonald said.

It’s a CDFI, low-income designated credit union. It’s really in the middle of nowhere, a place of high unemployment and low income. In the entire county, there are 23,000 people, he noted. So there isn’t an abundance of jobs and it’s about an hour and a half from any interstate.

“Making that emotional connection to hope is what they do,” McDonald said. “All of their marketing is based on, what can this product do for you? Not just, ‘We have auto loans from three and a quarter.’ Your car just broke down. You don’t want to keep putting money into it. The bank doesn’t want to lend you $5,000 for that used Ford Taurus, but we [HopeSouth] will, because you need to get to work. Because if you’re not getting to work, you don’t have a job.”

He also noted HopeSouth does not judge members who fall, for whatever reason, into a financial quagmire.

“Why are people going to online banks? Why are they going to the payday lenders? Because they don’t want to sit in front of someone to tell them what they already know – that they screwed up,” McDonald explained. “So they start with, ‘We’ll accept you as you are. We may not be able to give you exactly what you’re asking for, but sit down with us and let us figure out how we can help you.’ They do an amazing job with that.”

Brandon Frey, a senior account manager for Web Strategies in Richmond, Va., has seen success in marketing emotions of member satisfaction and trust through Facebook social proof ads. Social proof is based on the idea that consumers will adapt their behavior according to what other people are doing, according to HubSpot, a Cambridge, Mass.-based developer of software products for inbound marketing. Examples of social proof would be a long line of patient customers waiting to eat at a popular restaurant or a photo of a well-known celebrity sipping a brand of coffee, which may add some gravitas and quality to the product, Sophia Bernazzani, manager of HubSpot’s Service Blog, noted.

Social proof can also include member testimonials. For a credit union running auto loan ads that appear in Facebook users’ news feeds, Web Strategies highlighted actual member testimonials that highlight things such as how simple and fast the loan application process was, which connects with the emotion of satisfaction. In another personal loan ad on Facebook, a user expressed happiness while securing a credit union loan after being rejected by banks.

“We’ve seen twice as many people and sometimes three times as many people clicking through these ads to credit union websites,” Frey said. “People are stopping on the ad and clicking on it when they see a positive review from someone else even if it’s someone they don’t know at all. It gets them to stop and they get a good sense of trust.”

Trust is an important emotion because it evokes a feeling of confidence and security when making a decision to buy a loan product. According to HubSpot, 88% of consumers trust user reviews as much as personal recommendations and 50% of users will visit a company’s website after reading positive reviews.

Frey has also seen strong results from digital ads featuring images that can illustrate the way consumers may be feeling when they see the marketing message.

For a credit union client that was marketing consolidation loans, Frey used a photo of a hand holding a “HELP!” sign sticking up from a huge pile of bills, which obviously conveys a stressful situation. He also tested this ad against another one that featured a more positive image conveying relaxation – something one can imagine feeling after taking a lower-interest consolidation loan and eliminating the stress of carrying high-interest debt. The image showed a couple relaxing, drinking coffee and enjoying a beautiful day.

What surprised Frey is that the ad depicting the stressful situation performed much better than the one displaying the stress-free scenario.

“When you’re able to connect with how people are currently feeling, especially if they are in a difficult situation, then I think that does resonate more,” Frey said.

But he added it’s also important to work a positive message of hope into the copy of the ad – for example, by taking out a lower-interest consolidation loan, you’ll be free from the stress of paying high-interest debt bills.