Onsite: CUNA Marketing & Business Development Council Conference at Disneyland

Record attendance of over 500 credit union marketers converged on Disneyland in Anaheim, CA this week. Make it happen! was the theme of the 2016 CUNA Marketing & Business Development Council Conference (#MBD16). Topics of focus were content marketing, branding trends, fintech, big data, innovation and all-around marketing in today’s world. A heavy focus was on reaching and engaging credit union members and non-members alike.

Christopher Morris, director of communications, National Credit Union Foundation had a nice breakout on how to leverage the cooperative principles. Christopher thinks you would be surprised on how many employees of your credit union would struggle to differentiate your credit union from a bank if put on the spot. The Foundation put together a short video that you can find on YouTube highlighting the cooperative principles that make us unique in the financial services marketplace. Christopher highlighted how your credit union can use financial literacy programs and community outreach to not only grow, but thrive.

There were a couple great panel discussions at MBD16. A panel moderated by James Marshall, Cooperative Trust Manager, discussed topics on branding trends, innovation and best practices. Dana DiTomaso (Kick Point), Andrew Schpiro (AirBnB) and Ben Polk (Google) answered marketing and branding questions from the audience and discussed the latest trends in a market that consumers have so many choices.

Tuesday morning kicked off with a Tech Talks panel discussing marketing technology moderated by John Best, Best Innovation Group. The panel included Maxwell Luthy (Trendwatching.com), Nate Hudson (USAA) and Jose Resendiz (Digital Insight, an NCR Company). The panel answered questions live via an onsite social wall where people submitted questions through Twitter at the hashtag #MBDTechTalks. The panel hit on a lot including marketing and technology converging, mobile banking, payments and competitors from outside credit unions and banks, big data, marketing automation, and even an Amazon ECHO demonstrations.

The day continued with sessions on consumer trends, measuring your marketing and business development efforts, the future of banking, culture, and even compliance in a digital age.

Having so many credit union marketers in one place the ideas and conversations were truly too many to mention in this little overview. As I sure you know, marketers are a lively bunch. You will have to see for yourself at the 2017 CUNA Marketing & Business Development Conference next year in San Antonio, TX.