Kabbage promotes its business funding products with multiple Gary Coles
Kabbage, a global financial services, technology and data platform serving small businesses, has introduced its first national TV campaign starring actor, Gary Cole. The ‘10 Minutes in the Future’ campaign showcases how quickly and easily small businesses can access working capital through Kabbage while highlighting multiple versions of Cole.
Gary Cole and Gary Cole for Kabbage
In the campaign, a group of workers are talking about the growth of the company and how they don’t have the money to expand. That’s when Cole (Office Space, Talladega Nights), pops magically into the picture, explaining that the company can have funding in 10 minutes, as that’s how long it takes to get funding from Kabbage. He should know, as he’s ’10 minutes in the future spokesguy.’ Another version then pops up, and Cole is now in a tuxedo, celebrating with champagne as ’10 days in the future spokesguy’ tells the group that the Kabbage funding allowed them to win a big account. Before it’s over, ’10 years in the future spokesguy’ appears.
In its 10th year since founding, Kabbage has helped more than 160,000 small businesses access over $6bn of funding to maintain healthy cash flows and grow their companies. Kabbage customers accessed more than $2bn during 2018, representing one third of the total dollars issued by the company since launching its lending platform in 2011 and its highest annual total. In 2018, the company also hit a milestone by extending small businesses access to more than $10m per day.
Created in partnership with Eleven, the Kabbage campaign will live across broadcast channels, over-the-top (OTT) networks and streaming platforms. ‘10 Minutes in the Future’ will be nationally syndicated throughout the US market.
“Our customers demonstrated the true market need for flexible funding by accessing more than $2bn with Kabbage last year,” said Kabbage head of brand and Growth Michelle Lisowski. “The new campaign, paired with Gary Cole’s humor, highlights the spirit on which Kabbage was founded, to make it easy for small businesses to get funding so they can focus on their business instead of their finances.”
Lisowski told The Drum that getting Cole involved a “thorough process to find the perfect talent for the campaign. Gary was at the top of the list. We were thrilled when we learned there was mutual interest and he agreed to work with us.”
As for the focus of the campaign, Lisowski said: “We wanted to stay focused on the top benefits we deliver for small businesses, and how Kabbage can fuel their success. A small business owner’s most valuable resource is time, and the speed and ease of our platform simplifies funding. The ‘10 Minutes in the Future’ campaign became a fun way to highlight how easy it is to get a Kabbage line of credit – which go as high as $250,000. We knew Gary’s clever style of humor and ability to play different characters would fit well with the future concept. Production came together quickly and smoothly once we finalized the creative idea and the shoot date. I accredit Eleven’s execution and Gary’s enthusiasm, wit and one-of-a-kind delivery to how well the vision came to life from the script to the screen.”
Kabbage will continue to spread the word through the campaign and other marketing efforts to highlight the needs of small businesses and how the company can help. “The 10-minute theme gives us unique opportunities – playing with time in our creatives, approach and placements is something we’re evaluating. We are also exploring more ways to celebrate cork-popping moments for small businesses,” said Lisowski. “As a technology company focused on data with small businesses, we’ll measure the campaign’s impact and evaluate how to proceed. We often say at Kabbage, there are a million ways to reach small businesses and you need to be good at each one. TV – whether traditional or online – is an important medium and we’ll let the data and results guide our next steps.”
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Kabbage
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