Shiv Singh, LendingTree's chief marketing and customer experience officer, joins Cheddar News to discuss the
launch of its celebrity-led campaign featuring 'SNL' alum Molly Shannon.

Between Bells

LendingTree Launches New Celebrity Campaign With 'SNL' Star Molly Shannon

the bells of cheddar news baker machado in new york. Do you need a linda? Well in lending tree's first ever celebrity driven marketing campaign and the company's 26 year history, the company is now leveraging the power of SNL um molly Shannon. Now the superstar is the face of the all new campaign with the mission to deliver a very simple message, Lendingtree makes it easy to win financially. So joining us now to discuss is shiv Singh Lenin Trees chief marketing and customer experience officer. She has such a pleasure to have you here. So molly Shannon. Amazing. We love her. You couldn't have gotten a better celebrity for this. So what's the message you're hoping molly helps drive to audiences here? Yeah, firstly thank you for having me on, you know, we're in a really interesting time. You know, literally all of a sudden just in the last three or four months, um personal finance has become a kitchen table conversation once again and what people are realizing, you know, with the rising interest rates with high inflation, that we have to pay much more attention to our personal finances. What we do at lendingtree is really our consumers to have choice to find that best loan to find the best credit card to find the best insurance offering. Because what we've discovered and what we know through our own researchers that if you pay a little more attention to the loan you're getting, Whether it's personal business loans, mortgages, whatever maybe you could save up to $60,000. So with this campaign, it's 26 years to the day of our founding what we're doing is we're reintroducing lendingtree to truly help you win financially and who could be a better person than molly Shannon to help us do that? Absolutely. And we know by the way shift, you know, debts are increasing. Interest rates are on the rise. We likely we'll see some more news from the Fed when it comes to interest rates down the road. It's clearly a tricky time right now for consumers. So how does lendingtree try to navigate that and kind of go through the weeds for people to try to make it easier for them here? Yeah, great question. So there are few parts to this first and foremost is by re introducing ourselves to our consumers. We're reminding them that, You know, we've been around for 26 years, we've served 100 and 11 million consumers. You know, we've serviced through us something like $260 billion dollars worth of loans have been serviced, that we're there for them. We always support to them being with them in the past and now even more. So that's one part of it. The second part of that is we reimagined the customer experience of lending tree and we're rolling it out in very interesting ways. And when I say we imagined, what I mean is the experience you have with lending tree when you're looking to get a loan when you're trying to figure out all these fancy acronyms that don't really make sense. Were there too, help you and support you step by step, every part of the journey. So that's what we're doing. We're reminding consumers of what we're about, how we've always been for them. But at the same time, we're massively up leveling that customer experience because especially like a time like this, consumers need that guidance. They need that editorial advice, they need that hand holding so that they make better financial decisions at a time when every dollar matters to every american and on top of all of that, the celebrity endorsement here of of somebody like a molly Shannon, what does this celebrity sort of bring you when it comes to marketing that you maybe wouldn't be able to get from somebody else when it comes to pop ups, Tiktok's all these other sorts of things that they can sort of bring here. Yeah. So, so molly Shannon is incredibly special and incredibly unique and what we love about her and what she's doing for us. And it's a wonderful partnership is she really brings a certain raw authenticity and she brings a certain raw level of trust. We all know her. We trust her, we like her. We feel she's one of us. She's not separate or above us. She's the everyday american who we can relate to, who has the same challenges the same problems and who comes to lending tree for a solution and then wants to share that with everybody else. So working with molly Shannon has really helped us drive home that point about where our consumers trusted partner that we're doing something special to help them, that we're on their side to win financially and do it in a way where, yes, the world is a little depressing at the moment, whether it's with what's going on in europe or uh you know, rising interest rates and high inflation at home, but you can also do it with a bit of humor and do it with a bit of fun and who better than molly Shannon and playing the role of linda and in our creative work to do that. Absolutely. By the way, shiv you just joined lendingtree really recently, I mean january of this year, have there been any challenges sort of navigating and leading this brand right here during this campaign here? Well, I've got to admit, I feel incredibly lucky and firstly humble to join the amazing lendingtree team. But more than that, what I discovered when I joined back in january um is that lendingtree has all these amazing, amazing ingredients. You know, whether it's the talent, whether it's the brand, whether it's the people, whether it's the partnerships with the lenders and insurance companies to create, You know what I joke is like a Michelin star restaurant for this time to really serve everybody and and help them. So yes, it's been short, but it's, it's been wonderful to be on board and I would humbly suggest this is just the beginning for what we have lendingtree do To serve consumers in America and truly helped them win financially. Um and you know, I I got to just emphasize it's mind blowing to me that you know the difference between the highest and the lowest rate interest rate is around 60 or 70 basis points on average. That difference equates to 66 0 $60,000 in savings. If you just go to one bank or one lender to get a mortgage or personal or business loans, you may be missing that much money by coming to lendingtree, a marketplace environment where there to help you choose and find the best loan, all the best insurance for you. We save you an immense amount of money and we support you throughout the journey, not just for this loan, but your, your financial journey across your life as well. Well, I think we all agree that you picked a really good celebrity spokesperson for this because who doesn't love molly Shannon shift saying, great to have you on, he's the lendingtree chief marketing and customer experience officer. Thanks so much for joining us