We had data that showed LendingTree had strong retention with customers—if they used the service once, they’d use it again, but it was often years later (most people don’t need giant loans on a yearly basis). We wanted to make an ad that spoke to those people. We’d just done a huge rebrand, and we wanted some TV ads to go with it, but the budget was extremely tight.

How tight was the budget? The longhaired little boy in this family was my oldest son, who was 6 years old at the time. Meanwhile the two little girls and the mom were friends of the production crew. The only actual actor was the dad!