Spot Loans
Avoid the sharks, go with the dog
Spot Loans existed in a very competitive, aggressive market. Most of the other providers opted for almost identical approaches using slogans of ‘fast cash’, images of call-me girls and $100 bills. They messaging was greed-focused, down market and indistinguishable from each other. Spot Loans would not gain anything by being another me-too, and their potential market would see no point of difference to all other providers, meaning Spot Loans could only capture significant market share by large advertising expenditure or by offering lower rates, effectively cutting margins.
Sin’s approach was to create a character around Spot, making Spot Loans one of the first lenders to move away from the hard-sell cash sales pitch.
The Spot Loans dog also provided the opportunity to create a whole new verbal and visual language that was cheeky, memorable and fun.
Industry
A great cheeky verbal and visual language evolved, taking everyday finance concepts and ‘Spotting’ them to be memorable.
Having fun with finance reduces the dogfighting.
The traditional route to market for fast cash lenders is through the internet, a highly competitive and low yield channel with frequent form abandonment. Rather than spend huge budgets on advertising, Spot Loans made the process fun and engaging.
Positioning the brand away from the traditional payday lender marketing also removed the associated negative perception, expanding Spot Loans potential market to an audience that would normally hesitate to use a high interest lender due to the stigma attached.
Every touchpoint created an opportunity to make customers happy, comfortable and talking about the brand.
