There is a certain symmetry, perhaps unintentional, in a company that helps consumers manage their debt deciding that now is the moment to spend more on advertising.
Accredited Debt Relief, a debt-consolidation firm based in San Diego, has appointed TCA, a media agency owned by the Omnicom Group, as its first media agency of record. The selection followed a competitive review, according to Lauren Gordon, the company's senior vice president of marketing.
The appointment comes as American household debt has reached record levels — a macroeconomic condition that tends to be rather good for the debt-relief business, if rather less good for everyone else.
Ms. Gordon said the company's priorities during the review centered on finding a partner with experience in cross-channel campaigns and what she described as a "customer-first approach." (One imagines the alternative — a customer-last approach — would have been a harder sell.)
"We saw that we could work hand-in-hand with TCA," Ms. Gordon told Adweek. "They're an extension of us."
The phrase "extension of us" has been deployed in approximately four thousand agency-selection announcements over the past decade, but in this case it signals something genuinely new for Accredited Debt Relief: the company has never previously retained a dedicated media agency, choosing instead to handle such duties internally or through less formal arrangements.
TCA, which sits within Omnicom's media division, will now be tasked with building brand awareness for a firm operating in a category that most consumers would prefer never to need.
For the agency, the assignment represents an addition to a client roster that spans several industries. For the debt-relief company, it represents a bet that professional media buying can help it reach more of the Americans who are, by the numbers, increasingly likely to need its services.
The timing, at least, is difficult to argue with.
Original story published in adweek.com: "EXCLUSIVE: Accredited Debt Relief Appoints TCA as First-Ever Media AOR as American Household Debt Reaches Record High"