The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2021
Habito’s mortgage erotic novella by Rocky Flintstone hits #2 on Kindle
For Valentine’s Day 2021, Habito had My Dad Wrote A Porno’s Rocky Flintstone write a cheeky mortgage erotic novella — it reached #2 in Kindle’s erotic chart
Habito · Uncommon Creative Studio
What it had to solve
8% of couples who had bought a home together said they were too tired to be intimate because of mortgage-related stress, and Habito’s free, simple online mortgage service was designed to remove exactly that stress. So for Valentine’s Day 2021 the brand decided to dramatise one of the steamier benefits of using it: a healthier sex life.
How it works
8% of couples who had bought a home together said they were too tired to be intimate because of mortgage-related stress, and Habito’s free, simple online mortgage service was built to remove exactly that stress. For Valentine’s Day 2021 it chose to dramatise one of the steamiest benefits of using Habito: a healthier sex life.
Uncommon Creative Studio briefed erotic-fiction author Rocky Flintstone — of My Dad Wrote A Porno fame — to write The Road To Completion, a cheeky tale of the steamier side of mortgages, published as a Kindle novella timed to the most romantic day of the year.
The novella reached number two in the Kindle erotic fiction chart. D&AD’s jury praised work that was “perfectly sculpted to the incredibly niche target audience” and funny, trashy and light-hearted, and the campaign now sits in the D&AD awards archive.
Why it lands
- Valentine’s Day supplied a ready-made occasion, so a bedroom benefit was the natural thing to dramatise.
- Commissioning a known erotic-fiction persona gave the book authentic genre credibility instead of a brand pretending to be sexy.
- The absurd mismatch — erotic fiction about mortgages — made a dull category memorable enough to earn real chart placement.
What it did
The novella reached number two in the Kindle erotic fiction chart. D&AD’s jury praised work that was “perfectly sculpted to the incredibly niche target audience” and funny, trashy and light-hearted, and the campaign now sits in the D&AD awards archive.
What you can take
Pick the genre your audience already loves and let the product promise star inside it — a joke nobody expected carries the claim further than a straight ad
Since then
The Road To Completion is preserved in the D&AD awards archive as a Writing for Advertising winner, and it remains the campaign’s core artefact: a genuinely published novella that reached #2 in the Kindle erotic fiction chart. The joke did the selling — proof that a brand benefit too intimate for a conventional ad can be delivered as content people actually choose to read.
Sources
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.
Your turn
You just read one. Describe the brief you are staring at, and see who has been given the same problem.
Free account · 3 free questions · no card