advisors. We’re not doing a social media campaign just because social media is popular. We want to use it appropriately to engage and motivate millennials to do the things we know they should be doing, versus putting out things that annoy them because we’re interrupting their social media experience.”
“The more firms can enable advisor-client collaboration through digital channels, the stronger the connection will be.” Christopher Lucy, Accenture
From Stodgy to Social
Millennials are inarguably the most social-media-savvy generation, so many financial services firms are working to break down their once-stodgy images to make their brands and offerings more accessible. “The more firms can enable advisor-client collaboration through digital channels, the stronger the connection will be. The highly interactive capabilities that they’ve come to expect from other industries are also how they want to communicate with their advisors,” Accenture’s Lucy says. Omaha, Neb.-based TD Ameritrade launched a millennial-friendly social media campaign in December 2013 called #ItAddsUp. The campaign features seven athletes sponsored by TD Ameritrade for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, as well as seven “next-generation” Olympic hopefuls for the 2018 Winter Games. Each time someone tweets using the hashtag #ItAddsUp, TD Ameritrade adds funds to brokerage accounts set up for its next-generation Olympic hopefuls to help them pay for training and other expenses associated with getting to the games. The campaign’s microsite includes athlete profiles, links to TD Ameritrade’s investment guides and a sweepstakes to win a trip to the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. TV spots for the campaign, which aired on NBC stations before and during the Sochi Olympics and on TD Ameritrade’s YouTube channel, feature clips from home videos of current Olympians, in reverse chronological order, to show how gradual steps helped them get to the Olympics. The ads explain that TD Ameritrade can help its clients achieve their financial goals by using a similar philosophy. The
52
campaign also was advertised on TD Ameritrade’s social media channels and in posters in its bricks-and-mortar locations. As of February, the #ItAddsUp hashtag was mentioned 30,000 times. “We’ve heard time and time again that retirement and saving is intimidating and overwhelming to people,” says Dedra DeLilli, director of social media marketing and sponsorships at TD Ameritrade. “For an athlete, the journey to the Olympics is about taking small steps to reach their goals. It’s about marginal gains that they take. It’s the same thing for an investor, and we think millennials can relate to the 2014 athletes and the 2018 hopefuls. We’re trying to take the intimidation factor out of investing and let people know that it’s never too early to start. We do a lot of research to understand where millennials are, what messaging resonates with them. We’ve found that they’re in social media, so that’s a great avenue for us to reach them.” TD Ameritrade’s other millennial-friendly social marketing efforts include partnering with Likefolio, a website where users log in with their Facebook accounts to read about investing concepts and see which brands their Facebook friends are talking about. The brands are then broken down into equity investment opportunities on TD Ameritrade’s website. “We’re trying to come up with creative solutions that really speak to millennials, knowing that we would like to build a long-term relationship with them and grow with them,” DeLilli says. The company also sponsors a program, TD University, through which it works with more than 70 universities to help professors incorporate trading into their lessons and let students learn the basics of trading online with paper money. “Getting that into the curriculum early gives millennials more of an opportunity to integrate that into their everyday life,” she says. Such campaigns are effective because millennials often look to their peers for guidance, Monitor Deloitte’s Rose says. “If an advisor were to suggest different ideas to millennials, one of the first things that a millennial might do is turn to their peer set. If their peers aren’t doing similar things, it’s harder for them to take what the advisor’s offering to them on faith. As a marketer, and a wealth manager, in general, you have to give them enough space to make their own decisions. If you push too hard or you’re overly aggressive, that becomes a big turn-off.”
Tailoring Your Portfolio— and Your Pitch
Given millennials’ social and digital orientation, conducting online research is second nature to them. Millennials are more likely than previous generations to do their own research regarding investment opportunities. For investment products, 44% percent of
marketing news | March 2014
MN March 2014 1-64-2-19-14.indd 52
2/20/14 3:51 PM