The Story

When we at CBC recommend our bank marketing or credit union marketing clients develop some sort of unique, non-traditional program that may employ some experiential tactics or viral media, they often ask “can you give me an example?” Thanks to Umpqua Bank, one of my newer examples will be the Lemonaire program.

Take a moment to check out this new effort from Umpqua Bank’s marketing and branding team. In a nutshell (lemon peel?), the program is part viral marketing, part micro-lending. The bank is giving $10 plus basic lemonade stand supplies to qualifying kids, in order to help fund their first “start up.” Thereby teaching them about business, money and pursuing your dreams.

The Lemonaire website itself is interesting because it’s very minimally branded with Umpqua Bank logos or tags, and features a “send to a friend” feature that doesn’t even mention the bank in the message. This is clearly an effort to stimulate some viral spread of this program and idea. In addition to this website, we’ve so far discovered a print ad in The Oregonian, as well as a flyer in our local Umpqua Bank store itself.

Even far beyond the work CBC has done as an Umpqua Bank marketing agency partner in the past, we remain excited about their new ideas, and look forward to watching how this one unfolds and where it goes from here. We’ll keep you posted with updates and more insights and analysis into how the Lemonaire is proving the Umpqua Bank story.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 15th, 2007 at 7:26 pm and is filed under Bank Marketing, Experiential Marketing, Credit Union Marketing, Umpqua Bank Marketing & Branding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.