#PRAwards 2021 highlight: Prudential's targeted micro-influencer strategy reaps rewards

Today, Millennials are preparing for a financial squeeze as they face a tough challenge in financing their parents while expecting limited support from their own children. As such, attitudes toward risks are loosening with 72% of Millennials saying they will need to invest more of their savings in shares and other exchange-traded securities. Prudential wanted to encourage Singaporeans to think positively about multi-stage lives and start planning for it. Its research indicated various insights on younger Singaporeans. Let's take a look at how Prudential tackled its challenges together with PR agency Fiftyfull, and secured the bronze award for Best Use of Micro and Niche Influencers at MARKETING-INTERACTIVE's PR Awards 2021. 

Challenges

Changing lifestyles such as the desire to take several career breaks and have multiple occupations was also impacting Singaporeans’ financial plans for longevity. Keeping this in mind, Prudential wanted to empower people to embrace longevity despite people’s lack of confidence about living longer.

During an ideation process, the team saw the opportunity to break through the clutter with a positive and empowering message #Bringon100 – Do life on your own terms.

Strategy

Keeping this goal in mind, the team wanted to inspire Singaporeans to view longer lives as an opportunity, not a challenge - aligning with Prudential’s purpose to help people get the most out of life.

Prudential wanted to encourage Singaporeans to think positively about multi-stage lives and start planning for it. Its research indicated that younger Singaporeans were looking to break away from the traditional three-stage life of study, work and retirement. They wanted to live a multi-stage life where they could have three or more occupations, with career breaks in between, to meet their personal aspirations and resonate with Millennials and young working adults.

The team wanted to create a social campaign based on the findings from the research paper “Saving for 100: Funding for longevity in a time of uncertainty”. As such the #Bringon100 campaign was created which evolves the conversation Prudential already embarked on to not only provide unique opportunities but also demand a shift in mindset, from living the traditional three-stage life of study, work and retirement.

With #Bringon100, Prudential aimed to inspire Singaporeans to dream big, take the initiative to seize opportunities and chart a life journey that is true to their calling. The campaign started on 23 September 2020 and lasted until 14 November 2020 and was targeted at Millennials and young adults.

As Prudential also wanted to drive traffic to its website that hosted the report findings, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and online banners were identified as channels that would be used to reach out to the target audience as they spend the most time browsing on these social platforms.

Execution

To amplify messaging to the target audiences, micro-influencers from different content pillars such as family, entrepreneurship, finance and health were engaged. These influencers were:

1. Aiken Chia @aikenchia (Entrepreneurship)

As a media personality with Night Owl Cinematics (NOC) Aiken Chia plays many roles within NOC such as being a host, actor, content producer, sales manager, amongst other roles. Chia is the epitome of a hustler and someone who never stops learning while pursuing his multi-passions and embracing new opportunities.

2. Johnathan Chua @johnathanchua (Family)

Although Johnathan Chua has yet to start a family of his own, he has been openly sharing his family planning goals. Chua wants to ensure his parents are well taken of during their golden years, as well as ensure his finances are in order so that his children can pursue their passions without financial restraints.

3. Sherilyn Chua @sherilynchua (Finance)

As a financial consultant with Prudential Singapore, Sherilyn Chua has a clear goal of how she would like to live to 100. Chua understands that savings are very important and she’s on her way to building more, so she can leave a legacy for her future generations. She’s currently at a life stage of getting a BTO, getting married.

4. Roxanne Gan @roxannegan_ (Health)

As a yoga instructor and entrepreneur, Roxanne Gan advocates the importance of striking a balance between work and play. By maintaining a healthy lifestyle and planning her finances, she aspires to live as long as she can to fulfil her other life goals.

Being the faces of the #BringOn100 campaign, each of the influencers owned an area of topic best suited to their personality and reflected their current life stage. After launching the campaign on social for approximately two weeks, Prudential launched the influencers phase of the campaign to generate buzz and for Millennials to identify with these influencers.

To kick off Prudential’s activities with the influencers and to introduce them, the team created a short 10-minute teaser video that highlighted influencers sharing snippets on how ready they are to #Bringon100. On social, two types of videos were created - a longer version for Facebook, and a shorter version for Instagram to captivate different viewing video consumptions.

For the 10-minute long Facebook video, influencers answered a series of questionnaires that were related to their area of topic to resonate with the audience. To tie in with the #BringOn100 theme, the team first asked them questions about longevity. Further on in the video, the team delved into the different topics of finance, health, family and entrepreneurship for the individual influencers where they shared more on their aspirations.

On the 15-second Instagram video, the most interesting aspects of the video questionnaire were highlighted to get viewers intrigued and head to the webpage or Facebook to find out more.

In addition, visuals from the shoot were also uploaded onto the influencers Instagram page to share with their own followers on their thoughts on possibly living a longer life and how others should get started on planning and thinking about living to 100.

Results

For the launch post on Facebook, the video CTR received six times better than average results. This can be attributed to the combined power of the four influencers in one asset. The sharing of personal experiences also gave the campaign a more personable insight, which generated curiosity that pushed consumers deeper into the conversion funnel.

1. Roxanne Gan

Both of Gan’s video performed very well, yielding very high CTR (5.47%) and ER (52.98%). For the 15-second cut, out of the more than 15,000 people it reached, more than a third of the target audience were actively engaged, watching up to 25% of the video.

2. Johnathan Chua

Cost per view was the lowest for Chua’s video, with the highest return on investment. Engagement for the 15-second cut performed better (49.55% vs 21.36%) but the 60-second cut did better in terms of CTR (1.36 vs 1.18%). This indicated that family-centric content strikes a chord with Prudential's audiences, and the content is relatable to them.

3. Aiken Chia

According to Prudential, Chia's 15-second video garnered the most reach (15,564). The CTR was higher for the 60s version (1.29% vs 0.94%). This suggests that those who were engaged found an affinity with the content, albeit a smaller pool.

4. Sherilyn Chua

Chua's CTR was the second-highest among the 15-second videos (1.49%). Her posts performed extremely well, being one of the top posts across engagements, CTR and CPC. Taking cues from its audience and consumer interest in investment, Chua’s credentials as a financial consultant might have helped to this give more credence.

Prudential said that KOLs are a great way to gain awareness and penetrate through a larger target audience, especially when their followers also fall into the campaign’s target audience, further leveraging on connecting with the content delivered. It also noticed that KOLs with a lower following, such as Johnathan Chua and Sherilyn Chua, garnered higher rates, reach and clicks.

Based on this, Prudential gathered that smaller KOLs have more engaged followers. This could also be due to the content pillars they represent, appealing to consumers who identify with wanting to grow their wealth by investing and wanting to be financially independent.

Overall, the campaign did well to engage relevant KOLs to give the campaign a personal touch, making the content pillars of health, finance, family and entrepreneurship relatable to our message of helping customers envision their 100-year life, take charge of their future, set goals and pursue them actively to #BringOn100.