Hawthorne’s Rebranding for Success

You may have noticed that we recently tackled a major rebranding effort to bring a fresh new look to the credit union. That is, we changed our marketing materials and the message we convey.

You may be asking yourself, what is branding? Experts say that branding is the process through which a cohesive, enduring impression of a business, product or service is formed in the minds of your members. All of these interactions leave impressions and accumulate to form a memory and a collective perception of a company. A brand is the unique sum of these impressions. A strong brand becomes a trusted friend, and brand loyalty arises based on a personal connection.

Our goal at Hawthorne is to build a personal connection with you by giving you the information you need to make informed decisions about your family’s financial well being. We’d like to be your connection to the essential financial service that you need today and in the future. We are dedicated to providing members and their families with quality financial products and services delivered in a professional and timely manner.

Our new brand identity helps emphasize our member-owned and “People Helping People” philosophy, a signature of credit unions. The new marketing materials emphasize trust because our ultimate goal is to strive to be our members’ trusted financial advisor. We hope we can win your trust enough that you’ll think of us first when you need financial services.

As a credit union, and a financial cooperative, we think instilling trust is part of our mission. Credit unions are typically more trustworthy because we are not-for-profit and owned by our members. All of our profit is invested back into the credit union in the form of better rates and lower fees. We offer the same financial products as other financial institutions, but we do it as a service, not as a source of income. That's why you'll notice that our fees are significantly lower than the fees that a bank will charge you.

My husband and I used to have an account at a bank and they charged us every time my husband made his company expense report deposit into our account. They also charged us every time we spoke to a teller as well as charging surcharge fees for every ATM machine that we used other than the one at the bank. By moving our account to a credit union we were able to save $30 - $40 a month in fees. This extra month is now used for our enjoyment, i.e. dinner or a movie, instead of paying fees to access our own money, at a bank.

That’s the kind of value we hope to give all our members – and more. Extra money to enjoy life. You work hard for your money, and we’d like to see you keep more of it.