Johnstone Credit Union

Strategic campaign and branding support for JCU

Art Direction

Johnstone Credit Union is a Credit Union based in Johnstone, Scotland. A credit union is a self-help co-operative whose members pool their savings to provide each other with credit at a low interest rate. To be part of a credit union you have to share a common bond with other members. Johnstone Credit Union's common bond is the area of Renfrewshire.

Johnstone Credit Union initially reached out to O Street for strategy, branding and campaign support, as the current growth in memberships is dwindling and the age profile of the members is an ageing one. Johnstone Credit Union needed to find new ways to attract members to the union to ensure its longevity.

Partnering with O Street and Jeni Lennox, the first phase of work was an extensive research phase, lead by Jeni, we found JCU’s experience with money planning and savings goals is of particular relevance to younger people and families given the financial climate.

Expanding on O Street's new brand we wanted to create a campaign that highlighted the human aspect of credit unions, from the people who work in branch and offer support to its members who use the services to save and pay for life moments that matter.

We know life stages and key moments are the reason why members borrow from JCU: wedding, cars, first homes to name a few. There are so many personal and amazing stories from members explaining the moments in their life when they borrowed which we wanted to share and build the campaign around. Authentic imagery was key to achieve this as it needed to reflect real life people local to Johnstone, liaising with the client we were able photograph actual members in local spots.

The execution of the campaign sees JCU’s logo cradling the subject within the photography creating an embrace between both the imagery and brand logo. This graphic treatment resembles the connective motive within the logo itself and JCU’s capacity to support their community members. It was important that the creative approach also helped to reinforce and visually delivery the new look and feel of their refreshed identity as the campaign was the brands first public outing.