'Next' Steps

multichannel marketing

Image courtesy of John Hancock.

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‘Next’ Steps John Hancock targets multiscreen consumers with a customized video ad campaign depicting real-life financial challenges

By Christine Birkner | senior staff writer

 cbirkner@ama.org Goal Financial services marketers often rely on emotional appeals, showing target audiences how their products will help them prepare for important life events such as retirement or sending their children to college. When Boston-based John Hancock Financial Services Inc. was developing a new marketing campaign in early 2014, its marketing team wanted to use such tried-and-true emotional appeals while attempting to craft a message with consumers’ changing media consumption

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habits in mind, says James Bacharach, vice president of brand, marketing and creative services at John Hancock. “The brand has been built on dealing with reallife situations and really demonstrating that we understand the challenges that people face, the things that keep them up at night, the things that worry them. Also, second-screen behavior among our target demographic, affluent consumers, is really becoming significant. More than 50 to 60% of them are on a second device—a phone, a tablet, a laptop—while watching

TV. We wanted an opportunity to tell our story beyond 30 seconds or beyond a display ad.”

Action John Hancock worked with Bostonbased Hill Holliday to create a series of ads, “Life Comes Next,” which ran from September to December 2014. The ads show the beginning of a story and encouraged people to visit a microsite, HancockNext.com, to view videos with three possible endings to each story. In one spot, “The Meeting,” a man is summoned to a senior executive’s office, and on HancockNext.com, he’s shown leaving the company to start his own business, being asked to take early retirement, or being promoted.

Another spot, “The Ride,” shows parents on a car trip, and the online videos depict them taking their teenage son to college, bringing their young son to daycare as the parents return

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MULTICHANNEL MARKETING

to work, or moving a grandfather into a nursing home. HancockNext.com also includes links to more information about each financial situation and how John Hancock’s products—long-term care insurance, life insurance, 529 college savings plans and 401(k)s—could help.

The videos also include statistics on each situation, such as the average cost of four years of college, the fact that 71% of mothers work outside the home, or that 85% of people don’t have a plan for covering long-term care. “The statistics punctuate the scenarios,” says Nancy Lehrer, a senior vice president and account director at Hill Holliday, who worked on the campaign. “They take them from what might be happening in someone’s life to the reality of how it’s happening in everyone’s lives. It also causes you to question your own life, like, ‘Would I be prepared if I were put in that situation?’ ” The campaign also includes a social media component, inviting consumers to share their financial stories through the hashtag #LifeComesNext.

Before creating the ads, John Hancock and Hill Holliday’s marketing teams conducted focus groups with

COMPANY

John hancock financial services inc.

HEADqUARTERS

Boston CAMPAIGN TIMELINE

September to December 2014 RESULTS

HancockNext.com attracted 1.2 million unique visitors, and the campaign garnered 196,000 total social media impressions on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

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“We know there are things that keep people up at night, whether they’re aspirational, or they’re anxieties. We don’t want to make light of it; we don’t want it to seem easy. … We’re trying to engender trust by telling the truth.”

James Bacharach, John hancock financial serVices inc.

John Hancock’s customer base to figure out which issues would resonate. “We allowed people to talk about what they related to and didn’t relate to,” Lehrer says. “Through the stories, we’re able to demonstrate all of the different facets of the brand and the way [John Hancock] helps people deal with the challenges in their lives.”

The ads show empathy, Bacharach says. “We know there are things that keep people up at night, whether they’re aspirational, or they’re anxieties. We don’t want to make light of it; we don’t want it to seem easy. In being honest about it, hopefully it will engender trust in our brand. We’re trying to engender trust by telling the truth.”

“The creative team did a great job of finding and depicting scenarios that people could relate to, to say: ‘That could be me. I’ve been there. I’ve gotten that kind of phone call,’ ” he adds.

“The performances are sympathetic, so people want to know what happens.

It plays to everyone’s own natural curiosity.” results From September to December 2014, HancockNext.com attracted 1.2 million unique visitors, and the campaign garnered 196,000 total social media impressions on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. The ads will run again from March to June 2015.

The campaign also won a 2014 Media magazine Creative Media Award for interactive/enhanced TV ad. John Hancock declined to reveal the budget for the campaign.

Overall, the campaign increased John Hancock’s brand visibility, Bacharach says. “We did a survey of people who had seen the campaign after it had been in market for a few months and we saw a 25% increase in consideration.

We want to be a brand that’s viewed as helpful. These are challenging issues that consumers wrestle with and this is far from an impulse purchase. If we can help them figure out what’s best for them, it will reflect positively on us.”

The campaign also resonated with John Hancock’s employees, particularly its financial advisors, he adds. “Our employees are incredibly proud of it, which is significant because most of our employees are the contact point for the brand. They’re excited about it and they’re looking forward to what’s next, no pun intended.”

Mich Bergesen, global director of financial services at San Francisco-based global branding firm Landor Associates, says that the ads are an efficient way to communicate with John Hancock’s customers. “It’s a category where it’s tough to garner attention and these ads definitely try to do that through the cliffhanger approach. They’re taking a holistic view of a person’s financial life and needs. The stories feel authentic, and it’s very well-thought-out and wellexecuted. If the objective is to be noticed, they’re achieving that goal.” m •org For more on financial services marketing, check out “Fully Engaged” in the September 2014 issue of Marketing News, available at AMA.org/MarketingNews.

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