During National Military Appreciation Month many families, schools, and other brands are thanking soldiers by send care packages overseas. Instead of following tradition, Navy Federal Credit Union reversed the tradition completely by creating the world’s first Reverse Care Packages. For the first time, troops overseas could send care packages back home, for free—even from a war zone. To make it easy for our members we created a site where they could quickly customize their care package and send it to their loved ones back home, on us. Complete with a personalized message from the battlefield.

We partnered with Bespoke Post to procure care packages that we knew would be appreciated by family members and that would be ready made and easy to ship in time to arrive during Military Appreciation Month. Then at the start of the month we activated an easy-to-use webform and deployed brand ambassadors to Army installations to allow soldiers to send care packages to their families back at home and participate in our Reverse Care Package program. And each package came with a customized card with a message that encouraged social sharing so that Navy Federal could feel the love, too.

During Military Appreciation Month we made family members an important part of the national celebration of our military. We sent thousands of care packages out and generated an outpouring of social reactions. Accordingly, we saw our brand awareness rise among our target and in the month of May Navy Federal acquired over 23,000 new members.