Who Invited That Guy?

Posted by Erin Templer

We've all seen him. He's at every big party breaking glasses, spilling drinks, telling lame jokes and just acting inappropriately. You can't help noticing him. You trade glances with your comrades and whisper, "Who invited that guy?" He's brash, annoying and sucks the fun out of the entire night. He's the party crasher, and the inspiration for our new marketing campaign for the CUES Golden Mirror Awards.

During a recent marketing brainstorm, several of my co-workers and I tossed around ideas about how we should approach bringing awareness to the 2010 GMAs. With so many rumors floating around about them, our main goal was to make it clear that the Golden Mirror Awards will happen in 2010.

While we all agreed it is always better to look forward than dwell on the past, we knew we had to address what happened in 2009 (read on). And we wanted to do it in such a way that would inject a little humor into the campaign.

That's where our friend the party crasher comes in. 

Last year CUES planned a fabulous bash to celebrate and honor the winners of the 2009 GMAs. Unfortunately, before our plans materialized, we were stymied by one very powerful party crasher: The Economy Guy.

We made what we believed to be the right decision under the circumstances and did our best to give the Golden Mirror Awards winners the recognition they deserved through our dedicated Web site, publication in Credit Union Management magazine, ads in Credit Union Times and Credit Union Journal, and special acknowledgement still coming up at CUES' CEO/Executive Team Network in November.

But in 2010, we'll be taking extra precautions against the party crashing economy. So, things didn't play out exactly the way we'd hoped last year. We have learned from our experiences, we are listening to your feedback, we encourage you to continue sharing your thoughts with us, we still believe it's extremely important to recognize great marketing in the credit union industry, and we are challenging ourselves to make the 2010 GMAs better than they've ever been.

Message to The Economy Guy: Make other plans; you're not invited.