Case Study

Redefining annuities for the DIY generation

By 

With over 100 years of experience and credibility, American National is thriving. This experience has led us to recognize there is an untapped market in the DIY generation that isn’t looking to go the traditional route. Going straight to consumer connection, new product experience is allowing them to get their annuities directly online.

At Bernstein-Rein, we believe retail intelligence comes from consumer insights, a true brand purpose, and half a century of unrivaled experience. We put these beliefs together to accelerate growth. This approach is called Retailigent™ – it's what drives our work every day.

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Why The Work Matters

As Gen X approaches retirement, there comes a transfer of wealth in retirement savings and investment funds from Boomers to Gen X. This transfer becomes an opportunity for brands to target Gen X with products designed for their savings goals with an experience crafted for their desire to self-direct their investments. 
American National Insurance Company built a product experience specifically for this audience and their unique needs. They now needed help introducing the experience to the right audience.

Challenge

With a unique audience in mind and a business solution in hand, American National came to us to better understand the Gen X audience and the sub-segments that would best align with their Multi-Year Guarantee Annuity and a mindset to fund the annuity completely through a DTC experience. American National knew Gen X was seeking self-directed investment options. What they didn’t know was a better understanding of how the preferences drove their decisions, the reasons to make them believe, and the best way to make the American National brand connect through a campaign that was not centered around the agent-customer relationship.

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Insight

We conducted qualitative and quantitative research and scoured secondary research, identifying key insights about the Gen X investor. Through our efforts, we identified six unique investment personas, of which three rose to the top as the best opportunity for the product experience launch. All three priority segments were financially savvy and confident in making large financial transactions online. But they needed to understand how an annuity could be part of a smart diversification strategy and ultimately garner the confidence that American National was a company that could be trusted with their investment dollars. We crafted the campaign idea – “You Got This” to convey how easy it was  (compared to the traditional agent/client pathway) and deliver the empowering message our research suggested the audience needed.

Creative Solution

Investing in annuities isn’t something even a financially savvy consumer is thinking about on a daily basis. We created a full funnel campaign to drive awareness of the product experience to a targeted audience, building confidence through the buying journey with educational content, and ultimately driving them to fund their annuity with a DIY mindset, fully online with American National. By tapping into insights gained specific to our three target audience segments, we crafted nuanced messages that spoke to their specific barriers and biases, overcoming them with compelling reasons to believe tailored to each segment.

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Results

While the buying process for an annuity

is a considered purchase taking time and resources to win the hearts and minds of the customers, BR’s full funnel approach built on customer insights is proving to perform, driving leads, engagement and ultimately sales in just over a three-month launch window. The campaign has driven $1.7MM in sales, just shy of the $2MM goal. Return On Advertising Spend (ROAS) is at 108% and continues to increase efficiency as the campaign penetrates the market. Media tactics exceed benchmarks throughout each phase of the funnel, with qualified leads moving from engaged sessions to application starts more aggressively than campaign goals based on industry standards. As the team continues to optimize and enhance customer targeting and messaging strategy, we look for even more outstanding results as we go forward.

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