EARNEST
Debt & Dating
Turning proprietary research into a cultural campaign
THE INSIGHT
Debt isn’t the red flag.
How you handle it is.
Earnest already had permission to talk about debt. The opportunity was to make that conversation feel less like lending and more like real life.
We surveyed 1,100+ daters to understand how debt shapes attraction, trust, and relationships. One finding became the creative unlock: people cared less about how much debt someone had than how they handled it.
That gave us a way into a bigger conversation about money, relationships, and the things people usually avoid talking about.
We turned the research into a cross-channel content play spanning web, social, lifecycle, PR, syndication, and SEO. The goal was to build brand relevance around a topic people already cared about, then see whether that attention could translate into measurable action.
My role
I led art direction and design across the campaign, building the visual system and carrying it hands-on through the report, landing page, and six paid social concepts. I partnered across content, PR, lifecycle, growth, and SEO to keep the idea cohesive as it expanded across channels.
THE IMPACT (February 2 to 26, 2026)
5x CTR
+ 90% lower CPC on Meta vs. concurrent SLR campaign
+4 pts
aided brand
awareness
170M+
syndicated reach, with share of voice up to 50% from 28%
+20.3%
higher organic social engagement vs. benchmark
390
rate checks + $45K in SLV from one lifecycle email
THE SYSTEM
Serious money talk, without the serious money look
I built a flexible visual system that paired custom illustration with familiar financial cues, dating culture, emojis, and social-native references. The contrast gave a traditionally stressful topic a lighter entry point while creating enough structure to stretch across long-form editorial, social, web, lifecycle, and PR.
THE REPORT
What daters really think
(but won’t say out loud)
We treated the research like editorial, not a whitepaper. I designed the report as the campaign’s storytelling anchor, turning the findings into bold data moments, original illustration, and practical advice people might actually want to read.
PAID SOCIAL
The bolder the hook, the better it worked
We pulled the most provocative findings out of the research and turned them into six concepts built around curiosity, dating language, and cultural shorthand.
One concept did most of the heavy lifting. “Size doesn’t matter” paired an unmistakable eggplant visual with a finding about debt tolerance, becoming the clear performance winner and reinforcing the value of bold, curiosity-driven creative.
5× higher CTR vs. the concurrent SLR campaign
90% lower CPC
$0.25 CPC
THE LANDING PAGE
A home for the conversation
I designed a custom landing page that brought the campaign together, surfacing key findings, related stories, and the full report in one experience.
Post-launch behavior showed strong interest in the content itself, but also exposed friction. Median scroll depth was 34%, many users never reached the lower-page CTA, and static content elements were attracting clicks despite not being interactive.
The next move was clear: bring conversion points higher and make the content people were already engaging with work harder.
THE EDITORIAL SYSTEM
Six search paths into one bigger conversation
Using the proprietary research, we developed six SEO-driven stories around different search intents. I built a flexible illustration system that gave each article its own visual hook while keeping the series connected.
Because the content was built on original data, it also gave Earnest a longer-tail brand and SEO asset designed to keep building authority after the campaign launch.
LIFECYCLE
Brand content that actually moved people
For the first time, Earnest brought a research-driven, non-product message into lifecycle, targeting recently engaged prospects with content rather than an offer.
The topic earned a 52.9% open rate and drove 390 rate checks and $45K in signed loan volume. CTR was more modest, pointing to an opportunity to strengthen the path from content engagement to conversion.
It was an important proof point: educational brand content could create measurable downstream value, not just attention.
DISTRIBUTION + EARNED ATTENTION
The story traveled beyond our channels
Syndication gave the research scale, reaching nearly 169M people and helping Earnest’s share of voice grow from 28% to 50%, alongside a 4-point lift in aided awareness.
The story also took on a life of its own. Competitor SoFi featured Earnest’s research in its On the Money newsletter and blog, citing the survey findings in its own story about debt and dating.
WHAT IT PROVED
A brand idea can work hard without feeling like an ad
Debt & Dating gave Earnest a repeatable model for turning proprietary data into culturally relevant content: start with a human tension, build a strong creative system around it, distribute the idea across channels, and use performance to make the next iteration better.
The campaign expanded Earnest beyond product messaging, drove brand reach and awareness, outperformed more conventional financial creative, and generated measurable downstream action.
Cultural framing drove efficiency
A human tension made financial content more relevant and shareable
Bold creative drove performance
The strongest concept was also the strongest performer
Distribution multiplied the idea
One research story became social, editorial, lifecycle, PR, and organic content
Engagement still needs a clear path to conversion
Strong interest exposed opportunities to improve UX and CTA placement