Just because someone was on TV a lot doesn’t mean we trust them with large decisions and responsibilities, right? Sure! All the time!
That’s why Montel Williams, who was on daytime TV for 17 years straight, was tapped to represent online payday loans to help get you in such dire financial straits that you’ll be watching daytime TV from a debtors’ prison. I was always suspect of those Money Mutual commercials starring Montel because I had heard through friends how awful those payday loan services can be. It turns out some of the lenders Money Mutual hooks you up with are even worse than I imagined.
The joke about the 2 million dollar fine is true, Money Mutual represented some lenders that charged over 1000% interest, which is illegal in New York state and they now have to be explicit about their services not being available here. The joke about owing $750k is completely fabricated though. But when you realize that Montel started doing the Money Mutual commercials the year after his show went off the air it’s not a huge leap to assume doing the commercials was a financial decision.
For the music I went with another upbeat, corporate instrumental bed. Something that had some movement and wasn’t just chords and wasn’t so busy it would distract from the host. I wanted something peppy that you don’t have to think about, because when an advertiser is trying to get you to make terrible financial decisions the last thing they want you to do is think.
UPDATE:
Less than an hour after this video when live (I posted it last night and it was published this morning at 9am EDT) google announced that it will ban payday loans from ad search results! Now, I can’t take ALL the credit for this, but I’ll attribute to myself at least 99.8% of the credit. Next week’s video will be about google hiring me as a consultant for $800k/year (fingers crossed).
