Prudential goes local for regional growth

Prudential has launched a new regional brand campaign to champion its team of agents and financial consultants under the banner ‘I am Prudential’.The Asia-wide initiative will make a big effort to localise initiatives in key markets across the region, which Sean Rach (pictured), regional director of brand and corporate affairs at Prudential Corporation Asia, stressed was essential for such an overarching campaign."The versions we're rolling out for Philippines and Singapore, for example, are going to be slightly adjusted so they speak to the business needs or the business conditions or the nature of the market," he said."The nature of our corporate culture is very decentralised and we work closely with local markets by showing them something that is culturally sensitive or culturally enjoyed."The campaign's regional storyboard sees Prudential's agents participating in their clients' daily lives with dialogue like "I am not your brother, but I can be part of the family" recorded in their local accents and voices, which Rach said were deliberately kept to emphasise the connections with the markets.The Philippines push, which started this week, includes a scene of an agent attending a Christening ceremony, an important event for a predominantly Catholic country; while Singapore's campaign, set to launch in October, sees a financial consultant caring for both her children and parents - a narrative that illustrates the social issue of "the sandwich generation" in Lion City."What we want to show is that our agents' relationships with the customers have got so strong that they are invited into the family," said Rach. "It's the kind of bond we've been striving for years through listening."Launched in Hong Kong yesterday, the campaign also sees an editorial partnership with CNN, BBC and Time magazine that features inspirational profiles of ordinary people in Asia; it also includes micro-site, "Life's Little Secret", that hosts inspirational quotes across categories of relationships, health and children.Currently, people can share these quotes on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter and will eventually be able to make their own posts.The existing English regional platform and Philippine versions will be followed by localised versions in Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand and Korea in the coming months.Asked if the micro-site was a retargeting and a big data exercise, Rach said it was more about Prudential's "repository of Asian wisdom that people have learned in the past and where others can benefit from.""If you look at our sharing platforms, we can't identify who you are and where you're located. We're not tracking: with the agents that we have, the site is something they can use, not only for their own teams, but also for their customers to motivate themselves," he said. "We have no dubious intention.""I am Prudential" and "Life's Little Secrets" were created with Ogilvy & Mather and OgilvyOne.