Social media mythbusting - My product is too boring
Jan 1, 2009 
Online Marketing Banter Blog | By James Duthie
The social goodiness in the financial sector doesn’t end with our accounting friends. Commonwealth Credit Union (CWCU) joined in on the act, creating a multi-layered social campaign for…**drum roll**… a checking account. How Hollywood is that…? Convinced the Gen Y segment was being underserviced (and smelling the opportunity of lifetime value), CWCU created a checking account exclusively for the under 25′ers. Perhaps pessimistic of their ability to connect authentically with the Gen Y audience, they decided instead to create an ambassador role for an under 25′er to take up the challenege and spread the message to the people.
Entries to become the ambassador were submitted via video, with the audience themselves deciding who got the job. Once appointed, the ambassador’s role was to connect with the youth and discover what they wanted from their financial institution (duh… money). This was predominantly done via the Young & Free web site, where the ambassador used tools such as video, blogs and podcasts to connect with Gen Y. The results are impressive with 80,000 YouTube views and almost a thousand blog comments. Most important however was the 960% growth in new account openings in the 19 to 25 age group.
Boring product yes… but you can’t argue with those results!
