Better late than never, the US Treasury has launched an online campaign to explain people the how to survive the credit nightmare. The Bad Credit Hotel is a gloomy black & white video based experience that helps citizends understanding the mysteries of debt management.

The whole thing is conceived and designed pretty well, and despite the name you certainly cannot call it a humorous nor entertaining experience. But what I find really interesting is the choice of the Web as ideal media to deliver such an important and actual message.

The agencies are Lowe New York and Firstborn.

Rob Walker's blog sent me your way - I work at a student-loan guarantor doing financial-literacy communications and was just looking at the Bad Credit Hotel this week. I think it could be useful, especially since it's not *just* a web campaign - it's part of a TV and print effort, and comes at the same time as a lot of other efforts from other people.

That particular website has some good calculators ("True cost" is nice), although the user-interface is kinda subpar.

I'm curious to hear your opinions about the effect of large numbers of financial-literacy communications coming out in a somewhat uncoordinated fashion. Everyone who takes out federal student loans, for example, has to have entrance and exit counseling about how to manage their loans. Student-loan lenders, guarantors, servicers, colleges, high schools, and even credit-card issuers are offering increasing amounts of web-based, print, and in-person debt-management advice. Are they effective? Hard to say.

If past campaigns I've worked on are any indication, a well-targeted effort can cut loan delinquency by one or two percent, which pays for itself from the lender's perspective, at least.

Posted by: Aaron Weber at November 2, 2008 03:19 PM