Poking fun at what might be
waiting for you

The evolution of the role of credit in our society has milestones that can be tied to generations.

Today's grandparents tended to eschew credit as much as possible. For a house? Sure. For a car? Maybe. For dinner at Denny's? Not likely. If you didn't have it, you didn't spend it.

Their children learned the importance of building some measure of credit history so that their worthiness for sizable loans could be accurately judged. So, these now familiar cards began to fill wallets and drain bank accounts. This audience knew that the data related to their performance in managing money was somewhere, but how it was used was still a bit of a mystery.

Not anymore. Today, thanks to the risks of identity theft, we're all clued into the fact that there's a three-digit number out there (actually several, thanks to the three competing bureaus) that provides the primary definition of an individual's creditworthiness.

This phenomenon has, of course, created a market for companies that can provide you a peek behind that mysterious curtain. One of the most well-known is the cleverly named freecreditreport.com.

What's clever is that while you can, in fact, sign up to receive your credit report and score from all three bureaus for free, doing so enrolls you in an unlimited access program that costs $14.95 per month. (In the interest of full disclosure, the site says you can cancel within the first seven days and pay nothing.) That's right, a year's access to your "free" credit report will cost you $179.40.

To get this message out, the company's initial marketing featured an affable young fellow who explained what a credit score was, why it was important to know yours, and how you could be as smart as he was. Snooze.

Recently, however, their marketing has shifted to a much more engaging approach that features a fellow singing different jaunty jingles about what his life has become, because of credit problems. In one spot he jovially laments living in his in-laws basement, because of his new wife's hidden credit problems. Others have him working in a pirate-themed restaurant due to identity theft, and having to buy a less than "whack" car, because of his own credit problems.

The spots separate this company from its competition, because they put a funny spin on the credit score bogeyman that we've all come to believe may be hiding under our beds at night. How can you put this same kind of thinking to work for you?

• Think like your target audience. The company's first approach was a bit like trying to sell funeral plots to people this age. The natural reaction: I can do that later. This new strategy connects the product to real life purchases for this age group, like a car and a first house.
• Promote benefits, not features. What they're selling isn't data, but rather the peace of mind that you won't hit a surprise speed bump when you go to swap out your old Toyota.
• Don't be afraid to have fun. By making their goofball in the spots dumb and likeable at the same time, the company gets across the message that "there's an easy way to avoid what happened to this poor slob."

The message: What's common sense to you may seem unnecessary to your target audience. Find a way to connect to what's meaningful in their lives.