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By Yvonne Ziomecki, HomeEquity Bank
Special to the Financial Independence Hub
When you are a marketer you tend to look at advertising through a different lens than everyone else – sometimes you are critical, sometimes curious, and sometimes you just admire the genius. But it’s hard to assess your own advertising through the same lens, especially when you are in your mid forties and the product you market is for people who are retired. That’s when you call for help!
Last summer our company HomeEquity Bank, provider of CHIP Reverse Mortgages, launched new advertising campaign through a series of humorous ads developed and based on research insights, addressing the fact that older Canadians see themselves as active and able and completely in control of financial decisions related to their home.
Specifically: staying in the home they love. Our research showed that 93%+ of older Canadians want to age in place. We also learned that 80% of older Canadians don’t want to be called ‘Seniors’ and most prefer no labels to describe them or their peer group.
In order to better understand if our ads were hitting the mark we engaged the neuroscience research firm Brainsights to study the unconscious brain activity of 300 Canadian Boomers. Research participants were presented with approximately 1 hour of advertisements including our ads, other ads, movie trailers, promotional videos, etc. Brainsights analyzed participants’ responses to all the content they saw. The findings revealed not only that many marketers were engaging in unconscious age bias, but also that Boomers were pushing back against offensive labels and aging stereotypes.
Research revealed 4 insights to help marketing resonate with Boomers:
• Say goodbye to old age stereotypes. Today’s Boomers see themselves as being cheeky, mischievous, adventurous and capable. Old age stereotypes depicting 55+ Canadians as frail and fumbling will miss the mark.
• Use generation-tailored nostalgia. Bringing back the old classics through visual or auditory cues took this group back to a time where they felt more in control. It helped combat the anxiety and uncertainty presented by this new stage of their lives.
• Tap into the legacy of parenthood. Leaving a legacy of knowledge and teaching younger generations through parenting resonated strongly with Boomers
• Messages need to be delivered in manageable bits. Science proves that there are biological and neurologically differences in aging brains. To maximize the impact of communication, marketers need ensure they deliver information in smaller bits.
• The full research summary with added context is available here for review: https://www.brainsights.com/store/6eza6hjwoam9crlvn80n4g
HomeEquity Bank uses these insights to talk to Boomers on their terms. We knew that Boomers see themselves as positive, adventurous, capable and even mischievous.
Our original instincts to create ads that portrayed them as such were right and we had research results to prove it. Our “Sprinkler” TV commercial shows a home-owning couple cheekily avoiding a pushy realtor by activating their remote lawn sprinkler. It elicited a huge emotional response along with a 26% more emotional connection, and 11% more attention and memory encoding.
The moral of the research? Successful marketers should Enable … Don’t Label when it comes to engaging Canadians 55 plus.
Think for a moment about the your favourite brands. Do you feel they understand what makes you tick? Chances are the answer is yes.
Yvonne Ziomecki is Executive Vice President of Marketing at HomeEquity Bank, the financial institution that markets the CHIP Reverse Mortgage to Canadians 55 plus. Link:HomeEquity Bank providers of the CHIP Reverse Mortgage®
Tell Home Equity Bank to stop stealing from the seniors with the Reverse Mortgages, they are a rip-off and most people are well aware of that.