This morning while en-route to Pasadena with my friend Mike, we had a rather curious experience with the local credit union.
My friend Mike sometimes follows the news about credit unions and co-ops, having been involved in starting a co-op several years ago. He has always had an interest in cooperative organizations.
After Mike’s return from a short meeting with a representative, he showed me a nice glossy advertisement regarding Lockheed’s name change from Lockheed Federal Credit Union to Logix, with the new website to refer to them as Logix Smarter Banking. Seems they are dropping all references to their being a credit union, so as not to confuse people and gain more customers …. Well I’m certainly confused. I suspect most people will now think they’re a bank, they will say “no we’re still a credit union”. People will ask, “then why are you dropping all references to you’re being a credit union”. They will reply, “so you’re not confused”. I guess I need an MBA to understand this one.
I mean really! You’re a credit union, but don’t want to advertise as one? Leading people to assume you’re a bank and offer the same old things that we’ve all come to know and love, like fees for everything, how about out of order processing in order to get overdraft fees. Maybe you should ask for a government bailout, that would be memorable.
We’re a credit union, but don’t tell anyone, we want your business, we’re smarter.
Floyd Pink
I emailed the president of Lockheed Federal Credit Union (I’m a member) and told him that the reason I switched from BofA to LFCU was precisely because it WAS a credit union and not some cold corporate bank. I wanted less “banking” and more “unioning.”
At least he did write back, but he confirmed my suspicion that this name was the product of an outside “branding” consultant.
I’m thinking New Coke, here.