Gen Y - brand agnostics and savvy

Credit unions need to keep it real to woo Gen Y from banks

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The Northwest Credit Union Association (NWCUA) recently invited me to present tips on reaching Gen Y. Like most organizations, they want to know how to attract the largest consumer group in history. With Occupy Wall Street and Bank Transfer Day leading the news, there’s never been a better time for credit unions to be heard.

The first step in building relationships with this generation is knowing everything about who Gen Y’ers are and what drives them.

Meet the Gen Y’ers:

  • Believe they can be and do anything.
  • Believe miracles are possible.
  • Want to live first and work second.
  • Care about servicing their community.
  • Don’t like to be told what to do or what’s cool.
  • Want to experience the world for themselves to develop their own judgement.
  • Don’t want to be marketed to.

Gen Y respects authenticity. If you want to be listened to, be real. This generation can see through B.S.

Gen Y socialize on smart phones

Where are they? On their phones. They are more than half of mobile users in the US. Also nicknamed the Connecteds and Net Generation, they’re almost all socially networked. They do everything online, including research before buying.

When purchasing a product or service they look for:
  • Low cost
  • Good quality
  • Fast service
  • An “experience”

Living in an era when information is everywhere and everyone is constantly connected, how can NWCUA members and your organization reach Millennials? Relate to what’s important. Know that they listen to their friends. They care about their community and they care about living life well.

Give them what they want and:
  • Differentiate credit unions from banks. Seize the 99%.
  • Offer tools for living well that Gen Y will want to use. Financial literacy hasn’t been taught to them in schools. Make money management “an experience” with an app that helps them manage their money and reach their goals of buying a house or traveling the world.
  • Communicate credit unions’ community involvement. Offer an online program teaching financial literacy and curriculum for teachers.
  • Engage them on social networks. Let them lead on Facebook, and be a real resource for them on Twitter.

As evidenced by the 690,000 people who dumped their banks in a single month around Bank Transfer Day, Gen Y will like what credit unions offer. Be easy to find, easy to use and make their decision to switch easy.

am:pm pr tips

As for any other organization? Anticipate what members of Gen Y will want from you and what they’ll look for on your website. Don’t add fluff. Make sure to give them something that they can recommend to their friends without sacrificing their authenticity.

Distillers at AM:PM PR's first anniversary party

First Anniversary Party Video

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Scenes from AM:PM PR’s first anniversary party mingle with fire chief Pat McCormick’s speech to the friends, clients and family that showed up to support us and the community that is our home. Included among the participants were members of Distillery Row, Cascade Brewing, Zanzibar Cellars, Eat Your Heart Out Catering, Phoogoo, and the creative minds associated with PoBoy Art and Chris Haberman Art.

am:pm pr early logo illustration by Molly McCormick

Collaboration – We like it this way

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When our team decided to spin out and start our own thing, we wanted everything to be new and we wanted everything to be “us.”

Our most enjoyable and successful experiences had been through collaboration.  From day one, we decided to collaborate on everything.  We brainstormed our mission together. We decided on open office space where we would sit around one table, without offices that separated us from each other. We shopped for office furniture together and covered our walls in white boards for our many spontaneous brainstorms.

We planned our website together.  We all participate in client development activities.  We’ve realized putting our heads together makes us much more creative. As leadership guru Ken Blanchard teaches, “None of us is as smart as all of us.”

Our collaboration became so natural and organic that we extended this way of working to relationships with our clients, partners, neighbors, peers and friends.   Our clients become part of us.  We absorb them as members of our team. We hope they see us the same way.

We recently decided to partner strategically with 7 Apps, a smartphone app developer.  We realized more of our clients are asking about apps as marketing tools.  Our partnership gives 7 Apps access to market research and marketing expertise to support apps it’s developing for its own clients.

We hold weekly PR 3.0 meetings (Thursdays at 3:00pm) and invite our PR peers and clients to join us for roundtable discussions about the latest happening in social media, SEO and mobile.

We even crowd-sourced our logo, asking everyone we knew to help us choose the image that identifies our firm.

Now there’s another big opportunity for our friends to collaborate – in celebrating an open house for our new venture (save the date – 8/26/10 4-6:30pm).

We came from downtown, Class A office space and for AM:PM PR we were looking for an office location distinctly different.  We found the perfect place in an iconic historic firehouse with available space in an eclectic area of SE Portland.  A big bonus is that we can be part of a real neighborhood.

Rather than just show off what we’ve got (and the new space we’ll be moving into with 7 Apps), we decided to invite our neighbors to show off to our friends what an amazing neighborhood we’re in.

Bremik Construction (next door neighbors and the builders who did such a beautiful job restoring the firehouse and the adjacent buildings that are now Bremik’s home) even decided to open up their space and deck for our event.

We’re big fans of everyone we’ve invited.  Expect to taste:

We’ll even be showing off art from the wealth of local artists, hardware from our favorite little Ankeny Hardware across the street, and much more.

We like this way of working.  We have found real value from the psychic income of collaboration, enjoying the work we do and the people we are surrounded by.  Our new, bigger space should be completed by the end of the year.  It will have the same open feel and include gathering areas for peers and clients to come and just hang out if they need a little collaboration time.

So come on over – August 26 for the open house, or anytime.  Our place is yours.