Teaching people to Make Good Money

Challenge

Most Vancouverites respected Vancity for supporting community causes and being on the right side of social issues such as homelessness, LGBTQ rights and reconciliation. But all that good work didn’t always translate into more business. Ironically, many people felt Vancity was so busy doing the right thing, it didn’t have the expertise to do the right thing financially for their customers. As a result, Vancity’s brand had become stagnant, with little membership growth and a slow, steady erosion of market share.

Approach

We launched a bold multi-channel campaign focused on our new Make Good Money tagline that encapsulated everything that Vancity stood for. We focused on clearly explaining Vancity’s differentiator, showing consumers that they could make their banking make a difference by putting it into local businesses, the community and the environment. We used animated videos and in-branch graphics to explain how Vancity’s unique business model touched everything they did, from mortgages to credit cards to chequing accounts to everything in between. And we completely redesigned the interiors of Vancity branches, to provide a tangible example of how banking with Vancity is miles away from the Big Banks.

Results

Our rebranding effort transformed the business, becoming the lynchpin for a multi-year brand turnaround. In the first months of launch, Vancity enjoyed membership sign-ups that surpassed all credit union competition in the province. Cross-selling also increased and more complex (and more profitable) lines of business such as mortgages and wealth management saw solid growth. The positioning effort made Vancity a financial institution high on consumers’ consideration list while giving considerable profile to executive leadership. The brand was also recognized as Marketer of the Year from the BC Chapter of the American Marketing Association in 2013.