Updated June 2026. Originally published January 2009 on AdvanceMe's MarCom Gold Award for the Glenn Goldman radio media tour. Preserved as an early EPR reference on small business financial communications and the broader merchant cash advance industry's communications evolution.
AdvanceMe, MarCom Awards, and the Small Business Financial Communications Discipline
In January 2009, MarCom Awards announced AdvanceMe Inc. as a Gold Award recipient for the execution of a radio media tour featuring Glenn Goldman, then-President and CEO of Capital Access Network (AdvanceMe's parent company). The tour — supported by News Generation and Atlanta-based Trevelino/Keller Communications Group — reached more than ten million listeners across US national networks and select market stations, educating audiences on alternative financing for small and medium-sized businesses including the merchant cash advance category that AdvanceMe had helped pioneer.
The award and the underlying campaign operated within a particularly consequential moment for small business communications. The January 2009 timing — at the depth of the post-financial-crisis recession — meant the radio tour was reaching small business owners at a moment when traditional bank financing had substantially contracted and alternative financing options like merchant cash advances were becoming increasingly important to small business survival.
What Happened to AdvanceMe and Capital Access Network
The AdvanceMe brand subsequently evolved through substantial corporate restructuring. The parent company Capital Access Network rebranded as CAN Capital in 2013, operating as one of the largest alternative small business financing platforms in the United States across the 2013-2016 period. CAN Capital subsequently encountered substantial operational difficulties — including a 2016 announcement that the company had suspended new funding due to credit quality issues — and went through restructuring that fundamentally changed the operation. The contemporary CAN Capital operates at substantially reduced scale from its 2013-2016 peak.
The broader merchant cash advance category that AdvanceMe helped pioneer has continued to operate as a substantial small business financing infrastructure, with multiple competitors including OnDeck (acquired by Enova International in 2020), Square Capital (now Square Loans, part of Block), Kabbage (acquired by American Express in 2020), and PayPal Working Capital operating substantial alternative financing volume. The category has also produced sustained regulatory scrutiny including the 2024-2025 federal and state-level discussions about merchant cash advance disclosure and consumer protection requirements.
What the MarCom Awards Are
The MarCom Awards is an international communications awards program administered by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals. The program recognizes creative achievement across marketing and communications work, with award categories spanning advertising, public relations, corporate communications, marketing materials, websites, and adjacent communications disciplines. The 2008 MarCom Awards cycle (the cycle in which AdvanceMe received recognition) included more than 5,000 U.S. entries alongside additional international entries.
The MarCom Awards operate alongside multiple parallel communications awards programs including the PRSA Silver Anvil Awards, the PR News Platinum PR Awards, the SABRE Awards, the Cannes Lions PR Lions, the PRovoke Media Global SABRE Awards, and adjacent industry award infrastructure.
Small Business Financial Communications as a Discipline
The 2009-era AdvanceMe campaign operated as an early example of what has subsequently emerged as a substantial financial communications subspecialty serving small business financing brands. The discipline operates across multiple dimensions including the broader fintech category communications, the merchant cash advance industry's sustained regulatory and reputation work, the small business banking and lending category, and the increasingly substantial buy-now-pay-later business financing category.
EPR's Morgan & Morgan and the Arms Race covers a parallel small business / consumer category communications dynamic. EPR's broader Crisis PR pillar covers the broader financial services communications environment.
What Trevelino/Keller Communications Is Today
Atlanta-based Trevelino/Keller Communications Group — the agency that supported AdvanceMe's 2008 MarCom-winning campaign — has continued operating as a technology and startup PR specialist firm headquartered in Atlanta. The firm is profiled in EPR's PR Agency Profiles directory and operates as one of the substantial regional technology PR boutiques.
Related EPR Coverage
- PR Agency Profiles: A Directory of Communications Firms
- Trevelino/Keller (the AdvanceMe campaign agency)
- Crisis PR pillar
- Morgan & Morgan and the Arms Race That Rewired Legal Digital Marketing
- Public Affairs and Political Communications pillar
- How to Search for a Public Relations Firm in 2026
