UFCU had been an FG SQUARED client for over a year, and when it came time for the Fall 2009 Rush Campaign, they asked us to help promote their $20.09 account deal using social media. The gist of the UFCU promotion was that for every student account opened, UFCU would deposit $20.09 into that account (not too shabby). The primary goals of the campaign were to foster awareness of UFCU in the target audience (college students) and promote UFCU’s brand personality as a youthful and hip credit union.

The main campaign promotion we developed was a video contest that participants could enter to win $500: “Show us what you would do with $20.09.”

But the challenge remained: how to generate buzz and encourage engagement around this simple concept?  That’s when our own David Lee (without prompting or promises of extra vacation time) offered to eat on a budget of $20.09 for 20 days (<99 cents a day!) and document his journey through videos, pictures, and a blog, in an effort to drive traffic to the $20.09 campaign landing page. The reactions were immediate and explosive: “No!” “Impossible!” “You could never do it!” "I would starve!" David, however, was determined to do it, and determined to bring success to the UFCU $20.09 campaign.

Earlier in the summer, we re-skinned UFCU’s Twitter page, YouTube channel, and Facebook page, so all UFCU needed to do was jumpstart the campaign by sending out updates and generating content.  We set up a YouTube group under UFCU’s existing channel for the $20.09 contest, and David set up a blog. On August 17, David started his $20.09 challenge.

Here were the rules:

1. David was not allowed to accept any free food during the campaign.
2. David was allowed to eat free food that was available to the public (for instance, the free promotion samples at the grocery store were okay. Free pizza from a conference or seminar was okay).
3. No stealing food.
4. David was allowed to dumpster dive, if he felt driven to it.
5. Pulling food from the stores David had in his pantry prior to the beginning of the 20 days was NOT okay, except for spices, salt or pepper, hot sauce, or sugar, etc.
6. If there was ever a situation when he was not sure about the rules around the food, he resolved to post a blog and ask people on Twitter to get a general consensus.

During the campaign, David achieved the epitome of social media success: dynamic dialog with the target audience. With an average of over 800 blog views a day and a grand total of over 20,000 views, he not only gathered regular followers but enjoyed a healthy back and forth dialog with them.  With media outreach assistance from our PR firm, Accolades PR, his efforts also garnered a great deal of secondary media coverage: multiple mentions on other blogs, a front-page article in The Daily Texan (a top 3 media target), and an article about social media in the Austin Chronicle, among others. The campaign was a rousing success for UFCU because it accomplished their primary goals of generating awareness and cultivating their young and hip brand personality through social media. Additionally, UFCU gained a great deal of esteem, not only from their target audience of college students and younger social media users, but from national credit union associations as well.

• http://www.youtube.com/group/twenty09challenge
• http://twentydays.wordpress.com/
• http://www.ufcu.org