How a Goldman Sachs brand is trying to erase debt stigma

For most people, Goldman Sachs conjures up images of money, power and scary cephalopods.

But the investment bank is getting into consumer lending now, which means it’s going to have to make its brand a little more relatable to the masses. In October, it launched Marcus, an online lending startup dedicated to helping people own their debt issues with a personal loan product and a new message: “Debt happens. It’s how you get out that counts.”

“There’s a stigma around debt, people don’t like to talk about it,” Nicole Sbarra, a product manager for Marcus, said at an event in New York Thursday night. “It makes them very uncomfortable. And most people also don’t think of credit card debt as actual debt, they see it as a balance… [Marcus] is going to help you understand that there’s more to you than this extreme amount of debt on your shoulders.”

Read the full story on tearsheet.co

https://digiday.com/?p=234389

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