Not just for firefighters.

The tension

The name said firefighters. Consumers assumed the credit union was only for them, and merger partners assumed it couldn't serve their members.

The discovery

The fix wasn't a tagline. It started with a full brand voice discovery: who the credit union really was, how it talked, and what its members and staff loved about it. What surfaced was a genuine playfulness, a personality confident enough not to take itself too seriously.

That playfulness is what made the assertion believable. A credit union that can laugh at its own name can credibly say it's not just for firefighters. The three hand-written words over the name were the visible tip of a voice that had been there all along.

One voice, everywhere

Once the voice was defined, with a clear persona and messaging behind it, it became the filter for every decision:

• Campaigns. Every campaign spoke in the same voice, confident enough to sell a mortgage with a garage band, to put the brand on tees members actually wanted to wear, and to carry the joke onto the radio (have a listen below).
• Website. The website carried the personality online and was built to capture leads.
• Branches. I directed branch interiors designed to feel like the brand the moment members walked in, right down to the floor.
• Hiring. The voice even described the kind of people who would fit the culture, so recruiting looked for candidates who shared it.
• Systems. I designed, built and implemented Connections, the credit union's CRM and marketing automation system, so the team could follow up with every lead in the same voice without doing it all by hand.

The campaign was about expressing identity rather than membership.

The result

Merger partners stopped worrying that the name limited who the credit union could serve, and two credit unions merged in within two months. The rebrand was featured in a CUContent webinar and Credit Union Business magazine.

The credit union's homepage still says it's not just for firefighters.