Happy Money: Building a fintech product into a unicorn brand
Background: I joined Happy Money when it was still technically called “Payoff” and led the entire brand transition, including new brand strategy, comms and look/feel development, website, funnel and channel migration as well as launching all new Happy Money channels & content, including TikTok and audio with iHeart Media. Payoff is a personal loan developed to eliminate credit card debt, but Happy Money was developed as a master brand to house Payoff, as well as for future new products & services like new loan types (home improvement loans, etc).
Key Insight & Strategy: Most personal lending brands are functional in nature, focusing on the things that matter to consumers like interest rates and terms. And while these things are critical to compete on, most brands were missing how they made their customers feel - paying off debt and applying for a loan is highly stressful. In a category defined by numbers, our clear ownable, winning strategy was to be the mission-driven personal finance brand that wanted to make our customers truly happier.
Results: I arrived in January 2021 and through the HM brand transition as well as channel growth, optimization and product expansion, in February 2022 we reported 51% YOY revenue growth and were named a Fin-tech unicorn. We were also awarded most Customer-Centric Personal Finance Company by Forbes in 2022.
happymoney.com
New “Fund Your Happy” awareness campaign example (Debt Elimination Loan)
New “Fund Your Happy” awareness campaign example (Home Improvement Loan)
Paid social ad
Paid social ad
Organic social content
Forbes 2022 Most Customer- Centric Company in Finance
First ever HappyCon, a strategic thought leadership event developed to engage Credit Union and other industry partners
HappyCon 2022 speaking panel “Personalization in Personal Finance”