To help address a decades-long, industry-wide decline in life insurance sales, MetLife launched a comprehensive effort to provide better coverage solutions for the “middle market,” including multicultural customers. However, to regain the trust—and buying power—of these underserved prospects, they first had to overcome a legacy of focusing on the affluent and upper-middle class.
Category
Financial Services & Insurance
Services
Audience research Campaign development Media management Media strategy Reporting & optimization Video production
The results
2x
Sales from middle market and lower-income households
+50%
Policies among AA female heads of households
Uncovering a key insight that anchored everything
Our extensive research included a quantitative survey asking more than 900 current and prospective customers about their barriers and drivers for purchasing life insurance. We also conducted qualitative research via focus groups across the US to better understand each segment’s unique perspectives, and to identify unifying core values that transcend cultures and ethnicities.
What did we find? A universal need to protect. A desire to set an example. An interest in helping with cross-generational financial decisions. Pride in “family” no matter its composition. And a willingness to make sacrifices for the good of the family. Taken together, the research led us to an insight:
The traditional family is evolving into a “Circle of Concern.”
Redefining the idea of family
This Circle of Concern has less focus on the family structure and more on its function as a support system. It involves an intricate balance of financial independence and interdependence. Understanding and depicting this relationship was essential, as economic stress is undermining family structures among underserved customer segments.
Focus groups allowed us to witness firsthand the intergenerational dynamics regarding “personal” financial decisions. We observed a genuine desire to offer help and support to elders, along with a distinct tension about how to introduce what can be an uncomfortable discussion (i.e., a topic involving death). We also observed participants’ trepidation about making the best decision independently.
“Rich people are born knowing about this. For regular folks like us, it’s intimidating.”
—Focus group participant
We realized that there was an opportunity to leverage—and ease—these tensions through depictions of different family structures and life insurance-related conversations in our ongoing DRTV campaign. So we developed spots that:
- Reminded viewers that we all get older
- Portrayed intergenerational settings with strong female heads of household
- Positioned life insurance as “transformational” vs. selling a product
DRTV was the perfect focus for our media strategy, as priority audience segments indexed highly in both TV viewing and responsivity to direct response offers. DRTV also allowed us to track performance and continually refine creative messaging.
Older viewers also show a preference toward speaking with a person (over the phone via a toll-free number). And because the purchase involves consultation, this response channel was given priority over online in the spots.
Generating a multimillion-dollar YoY increase in policy premiums
This new creative approach helped MetLife successfully increase policies among middle-market segments, most notably from lower-income households, African American families, and female-led households. But more importantly, as a result of this targeted outreach initiative, tens of thousands of previously uninsured families now have the essential life insurance they need.
“The Flynn team worked as an extension of our MetLife Consumer Direct team. Together, we built something very powerful.”
—VP of Consumer Direct Marketing, MetLife
