Credit Unions of Washington patronize Super Bowl XL viewers
Posted by Brent Dixon on February 16th, 2006
This is semi-old news by now, but if you haven’t seen or heard about the Super Bowl spot run by the Credit Unions of Washington, let me go ahead and be the first to tell you that it set the credit union image back by a good decade or two.
In summary: two guys rap, in limerick, on the joys of joining a credit union. One with an obligatory hair pick, and the other with obligatory earrings and backwards cap. Both with obligatory head bobs and urban hand gestures. All of this enhanced by video production comparable to a 1983 McDonald’s employee training video.
Who was the target market? Surely not Generation Xers and older, who may at best have smiled as they thought of the Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight,” which also featured a video of awkward guys doing awkward dances, before they became distracted and then annoyed by that white guy’s hubcap-sized gold medallion.
So was it the youth? Please take it from me – no young person will ever think you are “cool” for rapping finances at them. Even if you rap those finances in carefully constructed iambic tetrameter. This type of unfortunate attempt at youthful hip-dom has all the appeal of a 60-year-old in a mini skirt. It’s never attractive, and it’s always awkward.
Based on seeing a previous ad from the same television campaign (featuring the same two guys singing an exaggerated folk-goes-rock tune about “shared branching”), I’m really hoping the whole thing was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. But even on the off chance it was, that was still a terrible call because putting it in some kind of context relies on the whole Super Bowl crowd having already seen their previous commercial.
Generally, the Credit Unions of Washington combining their advertising efforts is a good move. It promotes a seamless brand for the credit union movement, helps highlight the credit union difference, and allows greater reach of their message.
Ideally, though, this will be the last time they use that greater reach to make millions of people cringe.
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Agree with your analysis Brent. This probably didn’t cause anyone to rush out and join‚ & I’m also not sure what the demographic target was that they were going for. Do people want their financial institution to be anything other than friendly, fair, advocates, and professional (these are my finances you are dealing with!)? I’m guessing the ad promoters/directors got caught up in the need to be special, and most importantly non-boring, for a Super Bowl spot. Still, it probably could have been both funny and conveyed a real compelling message.
However, perhaps it did bring up the concept of “credit union” at a few bars and living rooms. I’m hoping people had a laugh and started asking some questions about credit unions. That may be the best we can hope for.
You’re right, Scott, hopefully it initiated some conversations that lead to people becoming a little more informed. Or at least more conscious of credit unions as an option.
There are really two main purposes to any successful ad campaign: on one hand the commercials are selling the specifics of the product/service/organization, and on the other they are selling a frame of mind, a point of cultural relevance. They’re selling brand identity and personality.
Communicating personality is where credit unions must bring their efforts up to speed as they’re taking their message to the masses.
This commercial took a roster of features, and then painted them with an easy-way-out concept. “What’s cool these days? Well the rap music of course.”
Credit unions need to realize there needs to be strong and definite strategy behind the creative concept as well.
ps: Remember that scene in Airplane when June Cleaver jumped in and spoke jive? This commercial kind of makes me feel the same as that scene did. Except that ol June was clearly a seasoned veteran.
Brent Dixon is an advertising guru
Their current ad featuring a man and woman on a date, with the woman contemplating whether she should stick around with the schmuck who’d spilled ketchup on himself because he might just be the best daddy to her babies ever or be a great provider if she just gave him the chance…is even worse, in my opinion. I’m not an uber-feminist, but COME ON.
The ad certainly didn’t make me want to go out and move my money to a credit union. It made me want to hurl things at the TV.
I’m with you Carrie. I completely don’t get these ads. They just leave me ice cold. They’re so self important it’s laughable. What the heck is the point anyway? I feel bad for the dog. If this is the best they can do, bring back the rapping guys at least they made me smile.
If you knew that a targeted TV commercial you were producing would end up just another cliché that insults women like most feminine hygiene product ads like it, would you shoot it? If you knew that with bad directing, you would make the character you were trying to generate sympathy for look like a chick repellent idiot savant, would you still call action? If you knew that all the endless research and study of the latest marketing theory du jour would render your script ridiculous and trite, would you still write it? If you knew that everyone listening to your spot would think the voice-over talent must have been cast because she was related to the producer, would you give her the microphone? If you knew that despite all your trendy cleverness, your hackneyed non sequitur ads would simply blend into the TV landscape where only us industry types would ever give it a moment’s pause, would you air it? If you only knew, you could have asked us, and we would have told you so.
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