Choosing a new name is no easy task.
Just ask the management at Align Credit Union, which until about a month ago, was known as the Northern Massachusetts Telephone Workers Credit Union (NMTW). Try to say that five times fast.
Over the past year, the Lowell-based credit union has undergone a quiet transformation, changing not just its name, but also the look and feel of its brand. Not because it wanted to disavow its heritage as a telephone workers’ credit union, President Ken Del Rossi said, but because the clunky NMTW was discouraging other potential members from joining and in turn, hampering the credit union’s potential for growth.
Today, it goes by Align Credit Union: Connecting All Your Banking Needs.
Although a name change could carry negative connotations – a sign of an impending sale or merger, for example – Vice President of Marketing Lauren Robinson said most of the credit union’s members have welcomed the name change, perhaps because management acknowledged its original membership base.
“Having a telephone worker heritage as our membership base, we also wanted to throw back a little bit of a nod to them. Using the word connecting, for example, and saying the word ‘align,’ out loud makes you think of a telephone line. We didn’t want them to feel alienated or feel like it wasn’t their credit union anymore,” Robinson said.
So once you’ve decided that a name change is in order, what comes next? Well, to begin with, you’d better get used to regular meetings.
After a standard RFP process, Del Rossi, Robinson and Executive Vice President and CFO Tom Hammond enlisted Single Source Marketing in Danvers.
Robinson said the credit union first put together a team of 11 employees from all levels and degrees of experience, from the teller with just five years under her belt to the senior vice president who logged more than 30 years at the credit union.
‘A Lot of Questions’
Then, Rick Alpern and Carley Monell, respectively president and account director at Single Source, lead the team through a process Alpern said he’s still refining.
“We don’t come in with all the answers. We don’t come in with any answers. We come in with a lot of questions, and we try to ask people the questions that lead us to a better brand,” Alpern said.
He said that included questions about the credit union’s target demographics, where they wanted to see credit union in two to three years and what this particular credit union does best.
And what Align does best is customization, Del Rossi said.
“It’s kind of like, have it your way. Sometimes people need a little more flexibility. They may fit or not fit into a traditional mortgage, for example, so we’re flexible trying to fit people in the right product,” he said.
After Single Source pored over notes from all their meetings with the credit union’s brand team and sifted out a half-dozen or so name suggestions, Del Rossi, Hammond and Robinson all decided Align was the best fit.
That was the fun part, Hammond said.
“Identifying every little piece of paper – deposit slips, forms, loan documents – that had NMTW on it was such a massive undertaking,” he said.
When upper management decided at the beginning of last year that they would pursue a new name change, they began to whittle down their existing stock so they wouldn’t wind up with warehouses full of useless inventory, Hammond said. Eventually, they appointed various senior executives each charged with changing collateral, signage, and so forth.
Align also set a definitive date for the switch rather than make the change piecemeal, Robinson said.
That meant getting the word out to members in May, well in advance of the September 16 changeover, and communicating to them that the name change was just that, no more, no less.
The credit union blanketed every communication channel with its upcoming name change and tailored that message to its unique heritage, Monell said.
“We used a line in the internal messaging: Like the telephone, we’ve evolved. We talked a lot with phone company employees about, say, how many times has Verizon changed names? We drew upon that analogy of it just being part of the evolution of the credit union,” she said.
Robinson said Align also held town hall-style meetings at each of its branches after hours, where members could come to ask questions and voice their concerns.
“When Sept. 16 came around, it was a non-event, and that was just how we wanted it,” Hammond said. “There were no surprises.”
The challenge now is name recognition. The credit union is running its first television and radio ads through the end of the year and has paired up with local musicians on a publicity blitz. While there’s still work to be done, the hardest part is over, and Del Rossi, Hammond and Robinson couldn’t be more pleased.
“A brand change is something you’re hopefully not going to do often, so it’s important to give the process the time and energy it deserves,” Monell said. “You don’t want to be going through this in another five years.”
