I had a hand in every bit of the production of these spots—the concepts, script punch up, casting, location scouting, even the background music selection. They also performed well for the brand. About 9 months after these aired, LendingTree’s direct competitor, NerdWallet, ran an almost identical ad. I take that as a compliment.

There’s an alternate cut of this where instead of zooming in on his wife’s hand touching Gary, it zooms in on Gary’s mustache (which was fake btw), and then he blurts out, “I can grow a mustache!” We all thought this was hilarious, but also knew it would not perform nearly as well as the more on the nose “I hate you Gary” outburst. Later on, focus groups proved us right on that.