Take it from Bernie the Bear that nowhere is the competition for the consumer dollar more intense, at times, than with banks and credit unions.  For those fiscal institutions in need of expanding their clientele, our giant Christmas stockings filled with toys present the perfect marketing strategy.  Here are just a few ways to make them work for your institution:

  1. Decorate your bank/credit union lobby or waiting area with a giant stocking filled with toys and give a stocking to each new customer opening an account in excess of a certain dollar value (e.g., opening a new checking account with a minimum balance of $1500, or some threshold deemed appropriate by management).
  2. Raffle off one or more giant stockings to bank or credit union customers, with each new account qualifying for one raffle entry.
  3. Give one or more giant stocking filled with toys to a deserving charity (orphanage, homeless shelter, home for battered women and families, etc.) when a certain threshold of new capital is achieved by a bank or credit union.   Again, management would decide what level of new account money would trigger a donation.
  4. Use a MONEY TREE to capture the spirit of the holidays and foster healthy internal competition for opening new bank or credit union accounts.  Decorate the tree with pictures of all account representatives and display the number of accounts opened by each rep during the holiday period.  The rep who opens the most accounts during the qualifying period receives a giant Christmas stocking filled with toys.
  5. As a variation to Promo #4, the winning account representative could pick a local charity to be the recipient of the giant stocking filled with toys.