Nearly 20,000 ESL Federal Credit Union member-households noted their annual Owners’ Dividend payment this year with special thank-you cards created by Roberts as part of a multi-faceted awareness campaign.

Since instituting the Owners' Dividend in 1996, ESL has distributed more than $73,000,000 to qualifying members. Roberts worked with ESL to position the dividend as a thank-you to members – and made the message stand out by sending a direct mail package with humorous thank you cards for members to pass to friends and co-workers, with sayings like, “Dear Neighbor, thank you for not having your holiday lights up in February,”

We also worked with ESL to reach the 90-plus percent of non-members who were unaware of this benefit, through radio, print and web media. The ads featured headlines such as “When it comes to thank-yous, free money is way better than a note.” In ESL branches, tellers wore brightly-colored Owners’ Dividend T-shirts that promoted the benefit and invited members to ask about it.

As ESL offers its thanks, awareness of the valuable Owners’ Dividend program is rising with current and prospective members.