Real Faces, Real Community: Verity Credit Union’s Member-Centric Advertising Campaign
At Verity Credit Union, the heartbeat of our organization is our members whose presence infuses our work with purpose and significance. Our commitment to the member community we’ve built is the driving force behind our latest advertising campaign, Spotlight on You, highlighting and celebrating the depth, interests and diversity of our members!
Spotlight on You came to fruition from our desire to showcase the real people that make up our Verity community and has grown to be much more than a marketing campaign. It has become a way to offer our members an opportunity to forge authentic relationships with peers and other members in a real-world setting. This initiative also serves as a conduit for our leadership team to further strengthen their connections with members, enabling us to gain deeper insights and better serve our valued community. After contacting our members with this opportunity, we received interest from 70+ members who enthusiastically volunteered to participate.
Throughout the conception and execution of Spotlight on You, we set our sights on achieving four fundamental objectives: Demonstrating Authenticity, Cultivating Connection, Creating Opportunities for Engagement, and Building Membership.
Demonstrating Authenticity is a core value of Verity Credit Union. We believe transparency is the cornerstone of our success. By featuring real members in our advertising campaign, we give prospective members a genuine glimpse into who makes up our community and insight into the Verity experience. We are incredibly proud of the diverse and committed group of members we’ve built and are elated to introduce them to the world through Spotlight on You.
Cultivating Connection is a major element of this campaign and core value of our organization. Members who applied to participate will attend photoshoot sessions in groups of 10, enabling them to create meaningful relationships during their time at the shoot. Our member base is rich with community leaders, business owners and entrepreneurs who we hope can benefit from connecting and building a network of potential clients, partners, peers, and friends.Spotlight on You will also facilitate an environment where Verity leadership can engage in deeper and more meaningful interactions with our members. Gaining this insight empowers Verity to consistently foster an environment where members’ voices are prioritized and solutions are created to address stated needs.
Creating Opportunities for Engagement is crucial to the success of Spotlight on You. This campaign provides not only the participants but all of our members and potential newcomers with an authentic channel for engaging with us. It brings our members into our world, fostering a two-way channel for their growth and success. Through this engagement, new relationships will emerge and a sharing of skills, expertise and understanding can occur. We imagine these spotlights showcasing members will support their individual, professional and business needs too - giving them more reach and opening the door for them to engage their community further.
Building Membership is a key goal for this campaign as it improves our ability to best serve members. The more members we have, the more members we can provide much-needed solutions to. We hope featured members will take pride in sharing their participation in the campaign with friends, family and their network; sparking meaningful conversations around financial services and community, changing the way we engage with financial service providers and being able to offer a credit union solution that has their best interest at heart.
Our inaugural "Spotlight on You" campaign is launching this fall and we are eager to see it flourish and evolve in the future. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our members for making this campaign possible, allowing us to facilitate growth and connection for them, our dedicated Verity team, and the vibrant Seattle community we call home. What began as a marketing campaign has evolved into a representation of Verity Credit Union's core values, a testament to our commitment to authenticity, connection, engagement, and community-building. The journey of planning this campaign has been an enjoyable one and we are excited to see its ongoing evolution.
About the author: Maria Alonso, Vice President of Marketing at Verity Credit Union
Maria Alonso leads Verity Credit Union’s marketing department, creating campaigns and initiatives that engage and empower the community, especially marginalized groups, responding to and resonating with their unique needs and challenges. She’s an accomplished marketing executive with proven success and a passion for leading programs that drive brand growth and enhance customer experiences. She brings diversity, equity and inclusion to the ad agency world, curating campaigns for Fortune 500 clients that include Starbucks, Amazon, and Coca-Cola. Outside of work, Maria enjoys trying new restaurants, traveling, visiting friends and family at home in Mexico, caring for her Bischon frise pup, and continually supporting marginalized communities.