•Riverbend Beach •Engaged in the Community •Return to the Community •More than a Sponsorship •Brick and Mortar
•Project Spotlight •Riverbend Festival •Beginnings •Facing Challenges •Setting Our Goals
•Stage Sponsorship •Claiming the Stage •Performers •Sponsor Benefits •Media Benefits •Flying Flags
•Creating a Destination •Enter Team Sandtastic •Press Conference •Community Partnerships •Promotional Teasers •Trailer Transformation •Building a Beach
•Engaging the Community •What to Do •Heat Wave •Destination: Vacation •Beach Fun Day •Social Media & Wave Cards •Surfboards •ATMs
•Conclusion •Philanthropic T-shirts •Table Top Art •Beach to Ball Fields •Conclusion Snapshot •Destination Achieved •Awards
Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union (TVFCU) practices the credit union’s universal motto of people helping people. Not only do we want to make a return to our members but to the community as well. TVFCU employees are well-known for their active involvement in the community and their fundraising efforts for such organizations as STARS (Students Taking a Right Stand), March of Dimes, Junior Achievement, Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce, Toys for Tots and United Way.
Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union seeks ways to give back to the community by partnering with local businesses and non-profit organizations. One example of this is how we collaborated with Creative Discovery Museum (CDM), Chattanooga’s local children’s museum. This year we sponsored their Student Art Gallery, a permanent exhibit space for local students to display their artwork. In conjunction with our sponsorship, TVFCU partnered with Center for Creative Arts (CCA) High School to create table top artwork to be placed around the Tennessee Valley Credit Union Stage during Riverbend Festival. A sampling of the table tops are displayed in the TVFCU Student Art Gallery at Creative Discovery Museum after Riverbend. Once the exhibition ends, the table tops are auctioned off as a fundraiser for the art department at CCA’s Dinner and the Arts event. TVFCU sponsors the Dinner and the Arts event and promotes the art fundraiser for the school. This partnership creates an opportunity for young artists to showcase their talents in the community and raise money for school art supplies.
Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union participates in The 3/50 Project –an effort to support local businesses. We purchase our coffee from Stone Cup, a locally owned and operated coffee roasting company. All 14 of our branches serve free Stone Cup coffee as one of our membership perks.
Riverbend Music Festival 2011
•
Riverbend began in 1981 with the intention of bringing diverse elements of the Chattanooga community together through the common language of music.
•
Riverbend has grown to nine nights, with five stages and more than 150 performing artists.
•
Festival attendance speaks of Riverbend’s success, with capacity crowds in excess of 650,000. Many individual evenings see over 80,000 people attend the festival.
•
Riverbend has been awarded nine Pinnacle Awards by the International Festival and Events Association.
In 2007, one of five stage sponsorships became available for the first time since the festival began. Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union viewed this as an outstanding opportunity to showcase our innovative culture, unique approach to service and our commitment to the communities we serve. The stage sponsorship includes a booth space with lighting and electricity. In keeping with TVFCU’s innovative way of doing business, we asked special permission to use our space for a tractor trailer that was converted into a mock TVFCU dialogue branch. Since TVFCU is a community credit union, we wanted to use our sponsorship to somehow benefit the community. We partnered with Habitat for Humanity to build a house on location at the festival. The Habitat for Humanity House project was a success the first two years of our Riverbend Festival sponsorship, 2007-2008. Before we new it, it was time to start planning for Riverbend Festival 2009.
Again, we had the opportunity to return to the community!
Riverbend Festival contributes $29.3 million annually to Chattanooga’s economy. What better way for TVFCU to return to the community and economy than by continuing our Riverbend sponsorship. However, the economic downfall of 2009 presented us with some new challenges. Habitat for Humanity could not secure funds to have a house built onsite at the festival. Disappointed by this set-back, we knew we still had to move forward in sponsoring a festival that contributes so much to our local economy. Although this was our third year sponsoring Riverbend, we now had a new project on our hands!
What would be our signature Riverbend Festival event ?
After months of creative brainstorming and recognizing the hardships our members and the community were experiencing with the bad economy, Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union decided to bring the beach to Chattanooga as a positive, encouraging experience for the community. “Since people are watching what they spend and may not have the luxury of a summer beach vacation this year, we thought we would bring a bit of the beach to them,” states Blake Strickland, TVFCU’s President and CEO. Our next challenge was, “How
do you build a beach?,”
especially in the heart of downtown. For the past two years, the successful Habitat for Humanity House provided TVFCU an opportunity to give back to the community. We wanted to make sure that this challenging project would include elements that met our community goals and beyond.
How will we return to our members and the community?
1. Create a destination for festival goers 2. Create a positive experience during a bad economy by bringing the beach to the community 3. Encourage creativity within our community 4. Partner with local businesses and non-profits to create a fun event that also gives back to the community 5. Reinforce TVFCU’s brand and reputation as a creative community partner
With these goals in mind, we developed three separate components for the project:
1. Stage Sponsorship 2. Riverbend Beach 3. Engaging the Community
Claiming the Stage Performers Sponsor Benefits Media Benefits Flying Flags
This is the fourth year Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union has sponsored this stage at the Riverbend Festival. Our sponsorship has grown into a full sponsorship and increased our involvement with the festival resulting in the re-naming of the stage to Tennessee Valley Credit Union Stage. Tennessee Valley Credit Union Stage is the only stage located under a bridge. This provides shade and a refreshing oasis away from the scorching sun, featuring stadium seating, table tops and ceiling fans. Performances on the stage ranged from bluegrass, jazz, rock and folk with twenty-three different performers throughout the nine day festival.
The Tennessee Valley Credit Union Stage is a venue space that is geared towards a folky, blues-alternative genre of music. Our stage sponsorship provides us with an opportunity to interact with the audience and performers. Every night of the festival, our staff was hands on making P.A. announcements, introducing the performers and assisting the stage manager. Many of the performers visited Riverbend Beach.
One band in particular, Tin Cup Gypsy, emailed TVFCU’s President and CEO, Blake Strickland, with feedback from their experience.
‐‐‐‐‐Original Message‐‐‐‐‐ From: Tyler Oban To: Blake Strickland Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 10:12 AM Subject: Nice to meet you at the festival Hey Blake, This is Tyler Oban. I was the drummer for Tin Cup Gypsy. We met after our set and then walked around the sand advertisement. I wanted to follow up with you and make sure you had our contact info. We would love to be involved with your company in the future if at all possible. I was personally impressed with the innovative and interesting marketing. I'm sure that is a reflection of the culture and life blood of your company. If we can help, or if you just need a band for an event, please let us know.
Recognized as a principal sponsor of the 2009 Riverbend Festival. TVFCU logo was prominently featured in a special advertising panel for principal sponsors on the back cover of 100,000 Festival Program Guides. Sole sponsor of the Tennessee Valley Credit Union Stage and credited in the schedule brochure each time an element of the sponsorship was referenced. Opportunity to place signage in and around the stage including flags and banners. Opportunity to make stage announcements and introduce the entertainment each evening. Four LED screens continually ran advertisements, a 30second commercial ran before each night’s headlining performance and numerous banners throughout the festival exposed festival patrons to the TVFCU brand.
Blake Strickland, President & CEO with his wife Laneese Strickland
Sole sponsorship of all ATM’s located at the festival allowing our members to access them for free.
The extensive media campaign included eight television stations broadcasting 30-second spots, thirty-one radio stations, and a huge advertisement campaign with the Chattanooga Times Free Press all with the TVFCU logo included in the campaign. TVFCU was also featured as a major sponsor on the Riverbend Festival website which had over one million hits before, during and after the festival. Twentytwo area billboards included the TVFCU logo as part of the major marketing campaign. The Media Campaign included: •Festival Signage -- corporate banners & feather flags •Radio Advertising -- 31 stations •Television Commercials -- 9 stations (networks & cable) •Video Commercials -- :30 spots, nine nights •P.A. Announcements -- over 20, nine nights •Electronic LED Screen -- 4 screens, nine nights •Newspaper/Print-regional print/magazines •Chattanooga Times Free Press -- 109,000 readers •Outdoor -- 22 regional/local billboards •Riverbend Website -- over 1 million hits, Riverbend website •Riverbend Program Guide -- 100,000 circulation •Numerous mentions in media-print, TV, radio and internet
We posted six 16-foot feather flags to create a grand zigzag pathway towards the Tennessee Valley Credit Union Stage.
The flags became a TVFCU icon at the festival, capturing the attention of festival goers and leading them to our stage.
The Tennessee Valley Credit Union Stage featured 23 talented performing artists during the Riverbend Festival!
Creating a Destination Team Sandtastic Press Conference Community Partnerships Promotional Teasers Trailer Transformation Build a Beach
Not only did we want to build a beach in the middle of the street, we wanted to create a destination for festival goers to flock to. TVFCU tackled the challenge of creating a memorable fun experience for the community. The birth of Riverbend Beach had begun‌
Jimmy Johnston, TVFCU’s Marketing Manager, designed the award winning Riverbend Beach logo and color scheme. The logo branded our tiki hut themed destination, Riverbend Beach.
Since this sort of thing had never been done before in Chattanooga, TVFCU was starting from scratch. Marketing professionals we are, but when it comes to the logistics of an urban beach we had to call in other professionals. After some research, TVFCU hired Team Sandtastic from Sarasota, Florida to create a masterpiece sand sculpture in our Riverbend Beach. Team Sandtastic constructed a 230-ton sand sculpture featuring the musical artists of Riverbend Festival. They began construction of the sculpture at the beginning of Riverbend, finishing different sections as they coincide with the artists’ performances each night.
Team Sandtastic has 30 years of sand sculpting experience, World Champion titles, and a Guinness Book World Record.
Team Sandtastic consists of four sculptors and various associates who travel across the world creating 50 to 60 sand sculptures a year. www.teamsandtastic.com
Riverbend sent a media alert to all local media outlets inviting them to attend a press conference announcing a NEW attraction at Riverbend Festival 2009. TVFCU set up a teaser beach scene to announce the coming attraction, Riverbend Beach. The community and media began to buzz about this new addition to the Riverbend Festival.
“A lot of people love to go to the beach so those people who are not able to, we’re just gonna bring the beach to them.” -- Blake Strickland, TVFCU President and CEO
Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union partnered with several local businesses to make Riverbend Beach a success. Each partner brought something to the table.
•WDEF News Channel 12- Riverbend Beach media sponsor News Channel 12 broadcasted their nightly news live from Riverbend Beach. Typically, they broadcasted directly from TVFCU’s tiki hut deck. News Channel 12 provided us with media coverage during Riverbend, as well as before and after the festival for our promotional teasers and wrapping up Riverbend Beach by announcing our Beach Vacation winner. •Double Tree Hotel- Provided two great beach vacations to Orlando and Sandestin, Florida. •Allegiant Airlines- Provided airfare for five to Orlando, Florida.
•Team Sandtastic- Professional sand sculptors who designed our 230-TON sand sculpture. •Monteagle Sand Company- Provided over 230 tons of sand to create Riverbend Beach. •Creative Discovery Museum- The non-profit children’s museum provided 30 volunteers to work the Creative Zone at Riverbend Beach. In addition, they provided children’s activities, a fossil dig in the giant sand box, and family photos in front of a beach mural. •Friends of the Festival- Non-profit organization that plans and coordinates the Riverbend Festival. They provided us with the stage sponsorship opportunity and space to create Riverbend Beach.
TVFCU implemented three Riverbend Beach teasers as part of the count-down to the Riverbend Festival.
WDEF News Channel 12 handed out 2,500 Riverbend Beach fans at five Chattanooga Lookouts baseball games in the weeks leading up to Riverbend Festival. This heightened the buzz in the community about the new attraction at Riverbend and built anticipation for its debut.
TVFCU partnered with Bi-lo grocery store to give away VIP tickets for the Commodores performance at the Riverbend Festival. This promotional contest ran from three weeks prior, to the first day of Riverbend. Co-branded entry boxes were placed at all 13 TVFCU branches and over 30 local Bi-lo grocery stores. Four winners were drawn and awarded two VIP Commodore tickets and two Riverbend pin passes.
TVFCU used the100 admission tickets from our exhibit sponsorship at the Creative Discovery Museum as a Riverbend Beach countdown promotion. WDEF News Channel 12 collected entries on their website for the daily giveaway. Twenty-five winners were awarded a Family 4Pack of admission tickets to the Creative Discovery Museum.
In conjunction with the Habitat for Humanity House project during Riverbend 2007 and 2008, TVFCU converted a basic trailer into a mock branch, simulating our unique dialogue branches. The mock branch was named the TVFCU Mobile Experience. While this was a creative way to showcase the look and the feel of our branches, the exterior of the trailer did not complement our tiki hut themed destination spot. Being cost effective, we wanted to get the most out of our Mobile Experience trailer, that was to reinforce our unique branch culture. The next step was to reinvent the exterior of the trailer by transforming it into the TVFCU Tiki Hut. We did this by adding a roof awning to the trailer and building a viewing deck that attached to the trailer’s entrance. In addition, bamboo and thatch were attached to the roof and exterior to create a tiki hut feel. Beach themed table tops, painted by art students, were installed to the viewing deck rails.
Re-wrapping the trailer
Building the deck
Add the thatching..
Riverbend Beach was created with over 230 TONS of sand.
All sand was donated by Monteagle Sand & Gravel
Team Sandtastic sculpted the headlining performing artist on the main stage for each night!
What to Do Heat Wave Destination: Vacation Social Media Surfboards ATMS
While at Riverbend Beach, festival-goers can walk inside the air-conditioned trailer to register to win one of the year’s trips that TVFCU gives away every year compliments of the DoubleTree Chattanooga Hotel.
If the festival-goers bring their children, TVFCU’s Riverbend Beach offers an exciting Creative Discovery Museum sandy play area! Known for its creative approach to education and learning, team members of the Creative Discovery Museum monitor the play area, teach the children about the beach and take photographs of the families in front of TVFCU’s huge beach mural!
Of course, what is the beach without a postcard? WDEF News Channel 12 offered FREE Souvenier photographs of festival attendees with the scenic Tennessee River , Coolidge Park and Walnut Street Bridge in the background.
TVFCU handed out over 5,000 Riverbend Beach fans to festival goers to beat the summer heat during Riverbend Festival. We answered questions about Riverbend Beach while the crowds were fanning themselves and watching Team Sandtastic create their masterpiece. This year the fan even included a QR Tag and information about our Social Media driven, Interactive Mobile Website!
Once visitors entered the TVFCU “Tiki Hut�, they were greeted by a TVFCU employee, just as they would be in a TVFCU dialogue branch. The visitor could then stand by the employee as they registered, imitating the same experience when conducting a transaction in a TVFCU dialogue branch.
Approximately 7,000 people registered to win the beach vacation during the nine-day festival!
This year at the Riverbend Festival, TVFCU sponsored a “Beach Fun Day� and invited special guests from Morning Pointe and Orange Grove to come and listen to the Navy Band play! Guests danced in the streets and enjoyed refreshments while the talented Navy Band played the blues.
This year’s most exciting improvement to the Riverbend Beach experience was the inclusion of Social Medias such as facebook, twitter and foursquare! We created a mobile website that attendees could bring up via the QR tag on the back of their fan or by simply typing in www.tvfcuatriverbend.com into their web browser. Once there, visitors could share not only where they were and how their experience was going, but they could also upload photographs to a real-time photo gallery! Since this was a new addition to our Riverbend Beach Experience, we decided to call it “Beach Chatters”.
To increase our engagement of the community, TVFCU’s Marketing Team came up with the idea of a “WAVE” Card. The WAVE Card was handed out whenever our photographer caught members, non-members and potential members in action at Riverbend Beach. Most popular were photos of festival attendees in front of their favorite artist’s sand sculpture. This addition to TVFCU’s Riverbend Beach made the analytical statistics of the community website photo galleries skyrocket!
Surf’s Up! Riverbend Beach has always included custom graphical surfboards in the beach experience. But this year was extra special..
By the Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union Stage, TVFCU created a contest where stage visitors could sign up to win a commemorative, autographed surfboard. This surfboard was signed by ALL the artists that played on the TVFCU Stage! A winner was randomly selected from the entries.
Riverbend asked TVFCU to be the sole sponsor of the seven ATMs located throughout the festival. Doing so allowed us additional coverage in Riverbend promotional information, and increased TVFCU awareness with festivalgoers. Our members also enjoyed free access to their money at the festival.
Philanthropic T-Shirts Tabletop Art Beach to Ball Fields Conclusion Snapshot Destination Achieved Awards
TVFCU Marketing Manager, Jimmy Johnston, designed a signature Riverbend Beach t-shirt. More than 100 volunteers worked Riverbend Beach throughout the nine-day festival while wearing our custom designed t-shirts. This retro inspired t-shirt was available for the public to purchase, donating half of the total sales to Creative Discovery Museum (CDM). TVFCU promoted this as, “giving back to the community is as easy as buying a beach tshirt.� Through t-shirt sales, we were able to donate over $500 to CDM. Since the t-shirts were a success, we are already thinking about other merchandise fundraisers for next year!
Art students at Chattanooga School for the Creative Arts painted the table tops at the Tennessee Valley Credit Union Stage. The student artwork will be auctioned off and all proceeds will go towards funding for their art department. The auction is now part of their Dinner and the Arts annual event. The school and art students have already committed to painting table tops for our stage lounge area for next year!
Riverbend Beach was created from over 230 tons of sand donated by Monteagle Sand and Gravel. After Riverbend Festival, the sand was donated to the City of Chickamauga for the community’s recreational ball fields and local high schools.
Goal: Create a destination for festival goers Thousands of festival goers flocked to Riverbend Beach. It was a Riverbend Festival highlight! Goal: Create a positive experience during a bad economy by bringing the beach to the community People in the community of all ages enjoyed experiencing Riverbend Beach. This was the first time a 230-ton sand sculpture was created in the heart of downtown Chattanooga. Goal: Encourage creativity within our community Team Sandtastic was inspiring to the young and old. All ages of festival goers joined Team Sandtastic during their daily sand sculpting lessons. Creative children’s activities were provided by Creative Discovery Museum, in addition to their beach inspired art classes offered in the museum during Riverbend. Goal: Partner with local businesses and non-profits to create a fun event that also gives back to the community TVFCU partnered with seven local businesses and non-profits to make Riverbend Beach a success. Once Riverbend Festival was over, the 230 tons of Riverbend Beach sand were donated to community recreational ball fields and local high schools. Half of the proceeds from Riverbend Beach t-shirt sales was donated to Creative Discovery Museum (CDM). In addition, 100 admission tickets to CDM were awarded to 25 winners and one family won a free beach vacation to Florida. Goal: Reinforce TVFCU’s brand and reputation as a creative community partner TVFCU created a new attraction at the Riverbend Festival. It would not have been possible without our community partners. Once again, we were in the community creating interactions with our members and potential members.
Riverbend Beach was a success! Crowds surrounded the sand sculpture to see the amazing artwork. Everyone was taking pictures with their phones and cameras. Before we knew it, Riverbend Beach photos were posted all over social networks such as Facebook & Twitter. We knew we had created a destination for sure!
“We value the partnership we have with Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union. Everyone should be fortunate enough to work with them. They are simply great at what they do!� -- Chip Baker, Executive Director of Riverbend Festival
Hard work does in fact pay off. Riverbend Festival has been awarded the Bronze 2009 Pinnacle Award for Best Sponsor based on TVFCU’s sponsorship. Through our partnership with Riverbend Festival, we are honored to receive this recognition from the International Festivals and Events Association. The Riverbend Festival was ranked against some of the largest festivals from around the world including the Kentucky Derby, Portland Rose Festival and festivals in Canada, South Korea, Netherlands and Singapore.
Riverbend Festival was also awarded the Silver 2009 Pinnacle Award for TVFCU’s Riverbend Beach print design. This design was created by Jimmy Johnston, TVFCU’s Marketing Manager.
Surfboard Giveaway 49 Submissions Website Stats From 6/10 to 6/18 the website received 142 visits who viewed 322 Pages and spent an average of 1:45 on the site. The top three pages visited other than the home page were… 1. The TVFCU Stage 2. Surfboard Giveaway 3. Win a Trip The top 4 way people came to our site were… 1. wdef.com 2. Direct URL 3. tvfcu.com 4. Google Search The only mobile devices that accessed the sites were… 12 Visits from Android devices 7 Visists from iPhone devices 1 Visit from a SymbianOS device 1 Visit from an iPad