PACE Credit Union celebrated the 2014 Credit Union Day with the launch of an exciting new rewards and referral program. PACE Rewards is the first of its kind in the country, bringing together members, potential members, business clients and a unique payment card*.
Where they started
PACE Credit Union was looking for a rewards program that would tick a few very important boxes:
1. Thank members Most importantly, the credit union wanted to find a meaningful way to thank its current members for their loyalty.
2. Gain new members PACE wanted to find a way to leverage its most important and enduring asset – its existing members – to gain new members.
3. Support business members PACE also wanted to find a way to get personal banking members to get engaged as consumers with its business banking clients.
4. Strengthen the PACE brand experience The PACE team also wanted to increase engagement with its brand through the development of unique, vibrant campaign creative that would support its short and long-term goals.
The solution: PACE Rewards A traditional rewards/referral solution would benefit its current membership and help gain new members, but it wouldn’t help PACE to achieve its goal to support its business membership.
Dan Coldwell, VP of Business Development at PACE wanted a solution that would help business clients to experience a direct benefit from their association with PACE. With that goal top of mind, Coldwell conceived a dynamic rewards program that would reward all stakeholders. His concept centred around a pre-paid rewards card* that could be ‘spent’ at participating businesses.
Coldwell made it very easy for PACE business clients to participate in the PACE Rewards program. As long as they had at least one POS terminal that could process MasterCard transactions, they were golden.
With that established, the concept of a member rewards and referral program took shape quickly. Here’s how:
an existing member refers someone to PACE Credit Union
that someone becomes a member
the existing member and the new member receive a $50 PACE Rewards card to be spent at any of the participating businesses
The creative: Feel the love PACE asked us to help them find a creative spin for this program that would support its goals and engage members, existing members and businesses. Coldwell says,
‘Pace was looking for a marketing partner who could take our new program concept and bring it to life. Our Rewards program is the first of its kind in the country and it was very important that the marketing and creative representation was strong.’
Our approach to bringing the rewards program to life was to let the PACE Rewards card play the starring role in the creative. We wanted to infuse it with personality and energy and for the messaging to evoke excitement and possibility. We wanted colours and fonts to support the PACE brand, of course, but we also wanted to establish a creative flavour that would be unique to the PACE rewards program. Finally, to support PACE’s long-term goals, the creative would also need to be adaptable.
Coldwell and his fantastic marketing team were happy with the final outcome, saying,
thirdstream helped us to give the program a voice while creating a value proposition to our members as well as our valued business members. The creative really adds a new layer to our visual brand and we can see using this as our creative strategy moving forward. We also like how the concept can be used for recurring themes and not just member referral. It’s a step towards a solid marketing partnership, that’s for sure.”
Get more details at pacecu.com.
*The PACE Rewards Card is issued by and is the property of Peoples Trust Company