Posted by Ron Jooss
I found it very telling that Pepsi chose not to advertise during the Super Bowl this year. (How about that Letterman ad, though?) Yeah, I know, the cynics say Pepsi got just as much publicity for NOT advertising as they would have for running their ads during the New Orleans Saints historic win.
Not quite. Pepsi made a huge statement by not spending nearly $3 million for a 30-second spot that could have been eyeballed by as many as 100 million viewers. Think of the ads Pepsi has run during the Super Bowl over the years. This year Pepsi has made the decision to focus on its Pepsi Refresh Project. Instead of telling us their “story” with an ad, Pepsi has decided to let their customers write the story—for a much better reason.
It's the new age of marketing. Customers and members provide the content for us. On the one hand you could say it saves money on creative and advertising spending, but that's not the point. When you let customers or members drive content, they are engaged, they truly feel like a part of your organization and they are a lot more likely to share your story with their friends. Credit unions are letting their members write their own stories as well. A couple of examples include Atlantic Federal Credit Union’s Web Hunt and Educators Credit Union’s Savings Challenge. Currency Marketing’s Young and Free program is another great example in the credit union space. Have you found a way to get your members involved in telling your story? Traditional marketing isn’t going away, but it’s a lot less effective than it used to be because your members are touched by so many different kinds of media and messages than they were a dozen years ago. In fact, the Web, blogs, cell phones, Twitter, etc. are rapidly becoming one big interactive “cloud” now. The only way your members will take the time listen to your message is if you take the time to listen to theirs.
