5:45 PM - 6:00 PM
Social Mixer: Network with fellow Financial Services Professionals, in a casual and relaxed atmosphere.

6:00 PM - 7:00PM
Presentations:
Roanne Weyermars, Manager, External Branding at Coast Capital Savings is going to discuss the I Love Fees marketing campaign, and Michael Allison, who is hot off the political campaign trail, is going to discuss the social media of provincial politics.

I Love Fees is the campaign by Coast Capital Savings to promote their Free Chequing Free Debit and More Account. The campaign pokes fun at traditional advertising using some humourous tongue-in-cheek style commercials, and features a hefty social media component at ilovefees.com, where visitors profess their love for banking fees with commercials of their own.

Michael will talk political activism and the step-by-step process of mobilizing the masses using social media á la Barack Obama. Financial industry professionals will see this political marketing model as compatible with their own financial communications, gradually turning strangers into friends, and friends into customers.

Michael is a graduate of Royal Roads University’s Master of Arts in professional communication. As a blogger, podcaster and public relations professional, Michael consults on tactics and strategy for online community engagement.

He has been quoted on social media in the Vancouver Island Business Examiner, Vancouver Courier and has sat on a social media panel for the Vancouver Board of Trade. He has also given talks to the Canadian Public Relations Society.

Michael holds a degree in political science from the University of Victoria, has worked in Ottawa for a Member of Parliament, and is currently working on a campaign in the provincial general election.