SchoolsFirst: Market Defense

A credit union people love. An audience that rolls its eyes at marketing.

The nation’s largest credit union for education employees, SchoolsFirst had a captive audience on college campuses. Until, suddenly, they didn’t. New university credit unions were springing up and scooping up members. Growth among university employees was slowing. And the competition was devolving into a battle of rate comparison charts.

Instead of fighting it out on the terrain of numbers and rates, we flipped the script and focused on emotion and loyalty. And because no one believes testimonials anymore, we took a “snarketing” approach with ads written like reviews no SchoolsFirst member would ever leave. Not subtle. Very memorable. And it made the proof feel human.

After one academic year, SchoolsFirst stemmed the slowdown and even began reversing it with university employee acquisition. Never underestimate the power of well-placed snark.