Sun Life is continuing its message around helping Canadians meet the challenges of modern life with a new, more digital campaign.
Like last year’s “Money for Life” campaign, which saw the brand move away from its traditional focus on retirement and expand to all kinds of savings goals, the new TV spot shows different slices of life and highlights the fact that life in Canada can present new changes and challenges almost every day.
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Another TV spot with a similar message will debut in the winter. Five digital videos that expand on the stories seen in the TV spot will also be debuting later this month and shared on digital and social platforms.
Sun Life worked with AOR FCB Canada on campaign strategy and the TV spot, with Phanta Media on the digital videos and PHD on media planning and buying.
Bill Ramsammy, AVP of global brand and marketing at Sun Life Financial, says consumer response to last year’s campaign convinced the company not only to return to a similar message, but amplify it by showing that even though life is changing, Sun Life understands what you are going through.
“Canadians are doing more in less time and taking on more challenges,” Ramsammy says. “With the ‘Money For Life’ approach, we give tools and advice that help [people] tackle those challenges. We’re being very client-centric this year and connecting the dots between challenges and saving goals to what we offer.”
Sun Life’s primary target is those over the age of 45, but Ramsammy says last year’s focus on diversity in its creative also resonated well with younger Canadians. Because of that – and the fact that older consumers are turning to digital and social channels more and more – the company has fleshed out its mix of traditional and digital channels for this year’s campaign.
While the TV commercials are meant to further enforce Sun Life’s message of embracing and planning for change on a mass scale, the stories in the digital videos range from an older couple with high net worth planning for retirement to a young entrepreneur starting a new business, ensuring the same message can be targeted to different consumers facing different challenges in their lives.
Sun Life is also working with AOL and Huffington Post to create 33 videos in the “2 Minutes to Transform” series, which are bite-sized videos with different experts that zero in on particular financial topics. It’s also working with Facebook to use its Facebook Canvas tool, which creates a custom microsite within Facebook’s mobile environments that combines tools like financial calculators and content with the social site’s targeting abilities.
“Facebook is one of the most popular platforms for our target, so being client-centric means we want to immerse clients and visitors on Facebook with the tools and advice and calculators they can use to teach themselves the financial literacy they need,” Ramsammy says, adding that using Canvas means it can target that content based on a demo’s specific financial needs.
“We’re really looking at social and branded content as ways to engage with our thought leadership around financial literacy. One third of Canadians still lack the adequate financial literacy to plan for their future, so we think that by educating Canadians about finance and the realities of the economy in Canada, it’ll be something that makes them realize meeting with one of our financial advisors is something they need to be doing.”
