Car Loan Payment Shrink Ray

Dominion Credit Union, Richmond, VA

 

Even when car sales are slow, there are always plenty of refinances ripe for the picking. Here's how we made refinancing fun – and blew away the lending goals with $5 million in loans.

 

Challenge

In early 2010, consumers were playing it safe, so car sales and car loans were way down. Even with a low rate, loan volume at Dominion Credit Union in Richmond, VA was hurting, and they came to iDiz for help.

 

Rather than let a killer rate go to waste, Dominion decided to focus on poaching existing car loans from other lenders. They knew that even when car sales are slow, there are always plenty of refinances ripe for the picking. Dominion's marketing mavens set a goal of $4.6 million in loans and offered a great rate, sure to entice people to switch their loans over.

 

But the term "refinancing" is just so dry and dull. Worse, it sounds like hard work. So the real challenge was making something not very exciting, well, fun and exciting.

Here's how we made refinancing fun – and beat the lending goals.

 

Strategy

We developed the concept of "The Amazing Car Loan Payment Shrink Ray" which uses a bit of retro sci-fi comic book fun to communicate that it's easy to save money on your existing car loan.

 

Many of Dominion Credit Union's members are in technical and engineering positions (that's our polite way of saying grown-up ex-nerds), so they instantly connected to the distinctive sci-fi look. And really, who wouldn't want a cool shrink ray?

 

The campaign coordinated POS materials, direct mail, online, and email elements, along with a custom landing page on the web site. The goal was $4.6 million in loans, and the promotion exceeded expectations by hauling in $5 million.

 

Everyone was happy. Dominion had lots of new money in loans, their members were now saving hundreds of dollars on their car loans, and we had a happy client.

 

But we're still keeping an eye out for one of those cool shrink rays. For real.