With inflation driving Canadians to feel uneasy about their finances, Sun Life’s latest campaign aims to inject a sense of hope for the future.
The campaign, by Leo Burnett, features a spot where a young girl plays a complex, prodigy-level piece on the piano, turning the heads of her surprised parents who are sitting nearby. The voiceover speaks to how “you can’t always predict the future,” and then touts how Sun Life’s 155 years of expertise can help “you plan one to get excited about.”
“With this campaign, we want to give a nod to that positive side of unpredictability and uncertainty,” says Chris Hewitt, VP and Canada CMO at Sun Life. “When you watch the ad, you’ll see the smile and the cleverness of the nod [as if to say] ‘wow I hadn’t though about that’ or ‘I’m looking down the road and there’s something I hadn’t considered. I should plan for that too.'”
The campaign was developed from Financial Planning Canada’s finding that 50% of Canadians lose sleep over their finances.
“It’s a very data-driven and consumer-driven approach,” Hewitt says. “We take this market research and this insight, and we know that lack of sleep and that worry causes people to freeze, to put off financial decisions and plans for the future. What we believe is, based on our credibility and our history in wealth and insurance, we wanted to tackle that insight and say that our advice and our experience can give some hopefulness.”
Hewitt says a core component of the campaign, beyond getting Canadians to see the upside to uncertainty and unpredictability, was to get consumers to see Sun Life as more than an insurance company.
“We have a significant focus on broader wealth advice and connecting our insurance wealth products with holistic advice and multigenerational planning,” he says.
With 155 years as a “trusted stable provider,” Hewitt says that Sun Life feels that narrative is highly connected to the insight it has about how Canadians are feeling right now during a period of economic uncertainty.
Sun Life has undergone a strategic shift in the past couple of years to launch its campaigns at a peak time for financial planning, heading into RRSP season and against larger competitors such as the banks.
“We’ll leverage these assets beyond the campaign but we’ve been doubling down on the timing of the campaign,” Hewitt says.
The multi-channel campaign, which targets those between 35 and 65 years of age, features approximately 300 unique assets being trafficked across online, banner and social media.
Havas Media handled media.
