Michigan First CU uses digital signs from the Kiosk and Display Company in its branches.

Initially used in retail spaces and airports, digital signs are increasingly finding their way into credit union branch lobbies, drive-throughs and ATMs. Fans of these ever-changing electronic displays say they increase the member experience, reduce perceived wait time and unite the community—all while reinforcing the credit union’s brand.

Why They Work

CUES member Linda Douglas, VP/marketing at $580 million/85,000-member Michigan First Credit Union, Lathrup Village, Mich., says digital signage is a great way to integrate branch merchandising with product and brand awareness in a tech-savvy way.

“Michigan First is definitely a tech-savvy institution,” she says. “Being able to use digital signage reinforces that position. It also helps to reduce the perception of wait time in the branches. If someone is waiting for a financial services representative, it gives them something to watch and keeps them entertained and occupied while they’re waiting.

“From a technical standpoint, it’s easier for us to produce digital signage and push it out instantaneously than it is for us to print posters and have to distribute them to the branches. It gives us the ability to push messages out immediately to our branch network.”

A digital signage user since 2003, Michigan First CU populates the screens with a combination of general product awareness messaging and more specific news about product launches, promotions, events and seminars. The CU works with The Kiosk & Display Company, Atlanta.

In addition to traditional branches, Michigan First CU has locations in local Meijer stores, where Douglas says the CU emphasizes brand awareness. “In those locations, we include more promotion about who Michigan First is,” Douglas says. “We also show lifestyle screens, in addition to the screens that have branding and products messaging on them.

“We also recently opened a branch within a student center on a college campus, so there are differences in what we do on those digital signs given the audience.

“When we launched our student branch in January, we actually had signage with audio attached to it and showed the video. Most of the sites don’t have audio. It was very appropriate for the audience, timely and it had some humor integrated into it.”

Douglas says one of Michigan First CU’s most successful campaigns using the signage was the launch of mobile banking in November 2010. “We used YouTube videos and created digital signage from them,” she says. The pace of registrations for Michigan First Mobile in the first month exceeded expectations.

Matt Vance, marketing /community manager at $139 million Industrial Credit Union, Bellingham, Wash., says he, too, is successfully using digital signage in all seven of the CU’s branches. The motivation to move to the digital signs was the ability to promote multiple offerings to their 23,000 members and potential members. The CU works with Ryarc, Sydney, Australia.

“In all of our branches we had what we called the ‘promo wall,’” Vance, a CUES NextGen member, says. “We would have a retail merchandiser come in every month and put up a new retail window display and that would be our new promotion. That worked—and we had done it for years. It just got to be a little bit too costly and we wanted something that would go beyond just one message. That was really the key driver behind putting the TVs and monitors in the lobby: to get the whole spectrum of what we’re working on out there.”

Vance says one of the big benefits the CU has seen in using digital signage is the ability to create dynamic, eye-catching ads and messages.

“You can have more fun than with just a static poster in your lobby,” Vance says. “You can have movement and sound if you wanted to—though we haven’t used sound in any of ours. It’s just that ability to keep it fun and updated. You can change it really quickly and easily.”

Vance says the CU uses the signage for current product and service promotions, reinforcing the brand and promoting what Industrial CU is doing in the community.

“One of the best promotions we used our screens for was the launch of our personal financial management (program), FinanceWorks,” he says. “We launched in January 2010 using only digital signs in the branch and homepage advertising. In the first month alone we saw 20 percent adoption of the product from current online banking users. The ads provided enough motion to catch the eye and allowed us to show large screen-caputures of the product, so members could see exactly what the budgeting experience would be like. This was key for us because the user-interface of FinanceWorks is what I feel helps drive the product.”

Vance says that he relies on feedback from his tellers about what’s been asked about or is frequently being talked about. “Usually it’s something that’s pretty dynamic, different in color or eye-catching that forces people to ask questions,” he says.

Jason A. Vitug, VP/member development at $110 million Tyco Federal Credit Union, Menlo Park, Calif., says digital signage has been an effective way for his one-person marketing department to promote the fast-growing credit union, where membership grew 69 percent in 2010.

“We’re a very small credit union, with very limited resources,” Vitug says. “[At one point,] we were sending out flyers and posters to various locations for two campaigns that were running that quarter for two-month periods. It was very time-consuming.”

Vitug relied on sponsor company human resources personnel to assist with putting up posters at the various SEG locations. And sometimes those managers’ busy schedules would not allow them the time to help.

“After speaking with a number of our remote HR folks, they felt it was easier and better received if it was something that was automatic and instant,” Vitug says. “So I started looking into digital frames. Digital signs are a more convenient way for us to market to our sponsor groups.

“Originally, we only searched for vendors to remotely update digital frames,” Vitug says. “We stumbled into the notion of remotely updating the digital signage with the installation of our first ATM. It was a normal cash dispensing ATM and there was an option to add a digital sign that had six rotating images that we could control remotely. That’s how we dove into digital signage. At one location where we had the first ATM with digital signage, the response from the employees was that when they passed it to go to the cafeteria, they couldn’t help but look at it because it was changing and eye-catching for them.”

The CU works with Access To Money, Cherry Hill, N.J., for its digital-sign enabled ATMs.

Tyco FCU currently has approximately 7,300 members scattered across the country. About 70 percent are in Menlo Park, Calif., where the CU is headquartered, but there is a growing presence at sponsor locations in Harrisburg, Pa., Houston, Jacksonville, Fla., and Greensboro, N.C. The CU has or plans to add ATMs to these sponsor locations, because they are the higher growth areas in terms of attracting new members and attracting loans, he says.

Although Tyco FCU has only been using digital signs since January 2011, the CU is getting positive feedback. “One thing that was interesting is that an employee found us on Facebook, and thought we should put on the digital screen, ‘Find us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.’ So we actually added that additional signage and we continue to get feedback from our members and employees of what they want to see on the screen.”

Vitug says the CU will continue to use traditional marketing, such as statement stuffers and inserts, that can be sent to out-of-state locations, but that he has found digital signage to be cost effective. “Just recently we spent a little over $100 for 20 20x36-inch posters. When we looked at having digital signs, we’ll be able to recoup the cost and maintenance after a few campaigns,” he says.

Cost Effective

Doug Braun, vice president of CUES Supplier member inLighten, Depew, N.Y., says the most significant advantage of digital signage, particularly in our current economic environment, is that it can be very cost-effective to a credit union vs. traditional merchandising.

And the cost is going down, he says. “When plasma flat screen displays were first introduced in the late 1990s a 42-inch display cost in excess of $5,000. Today a 42-inch flat screen display can be had for less than a tenth of that cost,” says Braun.

Digital signage “allows credit unions to decrease the costs associated with traditional merchandising, for example, printing, mailing, and warehousing costs,” he says. “It certainly lets them get more information about the products and services they’re promoting in front of the members than they would ever possibly be able to do through traditional means of merchandising. And it’s presented in an environment where [members] are most receptive to it and where interest can be converted to opportunity for the credit union. People are certainly behaviorally accustomed to engage with video content. It has a powerful attractive force. That alone dictates that people will participate and engage with the information on the screen—at least initially.”

A single branch with one small screen can run anywhere from $4,500-$6,500 per branch and $195 per month for service, depending on wiring requirements, wiring extension adapters, installation labor needed, number of channels the media player can handle, feeds required and custom artwork ordered, says Jon P. VanderMeer, director/client services at The Kiosk and Display Company.

Sign Success

Braun stresses that there is a significant degree of complexity in figuring out how to make digital signage work in a long-term format and encourage people to spend as much of their time in the lobby as possible engaging with that information during each visit.

“When you look at the effectiveness of digital signs and getting people to engage with CU messages, the most common deployment of screens is right in the transactional space,” Braun says. “Deploy your digital signs right behind your service representative at the service counter or teller counter. That’s where you’re going to capture 95 percent of all the accumulated time in a credit union or office. InLighten has calibrated its program so even in the briefest visit, two to four minutes, the member can see something that’s of value to them.”

VanderMeer says consistency in content drives the success. “We have a philosophy called ‘single stream,’ which means when you have digital content, it needs to push easily into drive-ups, remote tellers, LCD screens, outdoor signs, small desktop sized screens, interactive kiosks and ATMs,” VanderMeer says. “And next year it will be another kind of screen I haven’t even thought of. The more you can tie those devices all together to receive the same channel and flow of information, the more consistent the branch is going to be.”

Felicia Hudson, a former CUES marketing specialist, is now a free-lance writer based in Chicago.