Direct Response Marketing

DR Rocks on at Quicken Loans

1 Aug, 2007 By: Thomas Haire Response

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Chief Marketing Officer — and lead guitarist — Bryan Stapp says his marketing team has built the top online mortgage lender with a hot mix of branding music and direct response lyrics.

"We believe in building our brand through direct response advertising," says Bryan Stapp, Livonia, Mich.-based chief marketing officer of the United States' leading online retail mortgage lender, Quicken Loans. "We know we have a strong brand name with Quicken because it is recognized and regarded favorably by 78 percent of U.S. households. So, we really didn't need to launch a major branding initiative, per se. Rather, we chose to create advertising that leverages that favorable brand image and generates demand for Quicken Loans as a trusted provider of home loans that delivers innovative programs with phenomenal client service."

Quicken Loans' mortgage business is booming. Aside from being the No. 1 online retail lender, it is also the 12th largest retail mortgage lender in the U.S., according to National Mortgage News. The company, which Stapp joined in 2001, expects to close well over $20 billion in mortgage business in 2007 — and is adding more than 250 employees monthly to its base of 5,000 team members. The company also has plans to open its ninth Internet Home Lending Center in the near future. Yes, one could say business is good for the Quicken Loans team, but this kind of success doesn't happen in a competitive space like the mortgage business without top-notch marketing efforts.

Stapp's team of 70 is "focused on (its) online and offline advertising, public relations, Web site development, creative development, community relations, business development, partner management, sports marketing, recruiting marketing, client relationship marketing, internal and external events." The company, essentially, boasts an in-house ad agency within its marketing team. Stapp contends that his history in "building marketing teams for entrepreneurial, high-tech companies" was a "real fit" when he joined Quicken Loans.

The company's positioning online has made direct response advertising a natural fit across the board, from its online partnerships with such major Internet leaders at Quicken.com, Yahoo!, Google, MSN, AOL and others, to its television and radio advertising, which drives all response to quickenloans.com. And though one might imagine that Quicken Loans is a recent outgrowth of Intuit Inc.'s successful Quicken and Quicken TurboTax software products, the company's history — as well as Stapp's — dates back more than 20 years and three iterations.

 

A 'Rock'-ing Background

 

Quicken Loans' predecessor, Rock Financial Corp., was founded in 1985 by Daniel Gilbert, and became one of the largest independent mortgage banks in the U.S., before going public in a 1998 IPO. Gilbert, who remains the company's chairman and is also majority owner of the NBA Eastern Conference Champion Cleveland Cavaliers, then guided Rock Financial through a purchase by Intuit in 1999, which resulted in the business gaining the Quicken Loans name.

Quicken Loans' in-house rock band, The Loaners, will partcipate in the finals of the Fortune Magazine Battle of the Corporate Bands final on Oct. 6 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

However, in mid-2002, Gilbert announced he was leading a small group of investors in purchasing the Quicken Loans subsidiary back from Intuit. The purchase, completed in 2002, was unique in that Intuit allowed Gilbert to maintain the Quicken Loans brand name. Stapp says, "We retained the name in perpetuity, mainly because during Intuit's ownership, we built a level of trust from Intuit's management that we operated the business in the right way and are excellent stewards of the brand."

Since retaining the name after the deal, Stapp says, "We have grown tremendously, building a household brand name for the company." Stapp, who had joined the Quicken Loans team about a year before Gilbert and his investors took the company back private, had some solid experience in how to make that happen.

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