We wanted to let people know that with LendingTree, the lenders come to you. You no longer have to waste time searching for lenders, confused about where to begin and ultimately settling for the first loan you local banker offers. We wanted to leverage a memorable character and catchy dialogue to reiterate that LendingTree brings you the best loan options and saves you money. We needed a character who could deliver product information in a natural way that doesn’t feel too salesy, and we wanted to make the product benefits easily memorable, avoiding forced, stiff sales jargon.
The LendingTree “Linda’ campaign featured beloved comedian Molly Shannon as Linda, your friendly aunt from Long Island who can’t help but tell you how easy it is to find the best lenders with the help of LendingTree. Through some clever word play, a classic Molly Shannon performance, hair extensions and beautiful nails, the Linda character gave LendingTree a presence in popular culture with its first major celebrity-led TV campaign. People who had never heard of LendingTree suddenly realized that with LendingTree, the lenders come to you.
We wanted to create an endearing character you would trust, while using comedy to draw you in and give LendingTree the memorable hook that it needs to be top of mind when people search for lenders. The Linda character is someone who would naturally tell others in her life everything she knows about saving money, while slightly boasting as if she discovered this amazing service herself. It was a way to communicate product information in dialogue while still feeling natural and not forced. We chose to partner with Molly Shannon because she can make anything instantly comical, she’s great at characters, and she has a friendly quality that makes you want to listen to her. We knew she would find a unique way to make the character her own.
Finding numerous rhymes for “Linda” wasn’t easy, but we’re pretty sure we found every “enda” in the English language. We ended up with just the right amount of rhyming while still conveying the product language.
While most quarterly earnings reports start with the CEO highlighting the company’s results or revenue, Doug Lebda, CEO and Chairman of LendingTree, started the Q3 earnings report by mentioning this new brand campaign.
“We re-introduced LendingTree by recommitting to our brand promise of helping win financially...We launched the updated brand positioning with new advertising creative...Initial results have been quite positive.”
Because of this campaign, consumers started seeing a better way to shop for loans; proven by a 70% YoY increase in Google search volume for the brand and consideration reaching 58%, the highest it’s been in 8 quarters. And LendingTree saw a 42% conversion rate on the website, resulting in an 18% increase of new sales leads.
