We all grow old, but do we ever grow up?

Just as punks and ravers are now pensioners, so millennials are now buying houses, getting married and having kids, usually in that order. The YOLO generation now needs things like insurance.

How dull. But perhaps ‘adulting’ doesn’t have to be so, well, adult.

The historic rules of financial services communication rely on a simple formula: obligation x solidity = purchase

Now, ‘obligation’ comes in many forms. It could be about selling the threat of not having the product. It could be about preservation. It could be some flavour of ‘how it’s always been done’.

Ditto ‘solidity’ could be about any of history, crowd wisdom or approachability.

Trouble is, the new generation of homeowners and ‘high net worths’ don’t care too much for either obligation or solidity.

Moving away from inherited values

The time-honoured metric of ‘who my parents banked with’ just doesn’t work anymore. Today's home buyers are actively moving away from inherited values to find relatable alternatives. Just look at brands like Monzo, Transferwise and Wealthify. Yes, they sell newness and a shiny shade of ‘Millennial pink’, but they also sell distance from the establishment. They sell an alternative to what your parents did, even as you become more adult, and more like your parents than you might care to admit.

So, is it time for a new equation? Here’s my starter for 10.

Reminder x proximity = purchase.

Reminder: less ‘there will be consequences if you don’t have policy x’, more ‘this is a choice you might want to make’.

Proximity: less ‘since 1848’ or ‘by your side’, more ‘a bit like you’. A peer-to-peer relationship rather than teacher-pupil, or the more regular ‘hostage-captor.

It’s a starter for 10 we put into practice for our recent campaign for Beagle Street. And it’s a pretty good test because life insurance is the polar opposite of YOLO. In fact, life insurance might be the perfect crucible of a new equation.

Before we get into it, it’s worth talking about the pretty clear conventions of the life insurance category. Almost all communications, including Beagle Street’s previous work, follow a similar structure:

The Obligation phase:

1.       ’If the worst should happen’. Introducing death, a topic all but a few French philosophers and the Victorians avoid.

2.       ‘You don’t want your family to have to lose their house, do you?’. Setting up jeopardy. If you don’t have this policy, there will be unimaginably catastrophic consequences. Destitution. Starving children. The life you’ve built, your legacy no less, in tatters. 

The Solidity phase:

1.       ‘Trust company x, it’s been around since 1848’. The experts. People who know better.

2.       ‘We pay our claims’. Which is almost as bad as a car brand saying ‘it’s got wheels’

Levelling up your life

What they miss though, is a simple fact:

The moments that people buy life insurance, when they are getting married, when they buy a house, and when they have a child in particular, are moments when they take on more responsibility. But for the new audience that responsibility is more than offset by excitement.

This is levelling up in your life. A world of opportunity opened up. A bright future to come.

And not forgetting that this is a generation that has not had it easy. Getting on the property ladder, for example, represents a significant achievement rather than an inevitable next step, and it’s likely the end of a long road.

Yes, these are times when shit gets real, but they are also times when shit gets rich.

With Beagle Street we reminded them of that fact in no unequivocal terms:

NOT: You should have life insurance

BUT: You have a life worth insuring

Embrace the joy

That’s the reminder phase sorted, now what about proximity?

Well, we needed to show that we were on a level with them. The mirror had to be pointing across, not down as has so often been the case through financial services history. But we couldn’t simply reflect, and we certainly couldn’t sugar coat.

The key was to handle the inevitable trails of ‘shit getting rich’ in the way that our audience saw them, as things to remember and embrace.

By way of example, think of your favourite photo of your child. I guarantee it is not a picture-postcard portrait. In fact, they probably have yoghurt all over their face. Indeed, it may not have been all that fun at the time, but it’s good to look back on, what someone once called ‘type two fun’.

The key point: embrace both the joy and the strife, don’t fear it.

Then we had to invite our audience to place themselves into the scene, and what better way than to abstract it a few notches?

We built a miniature set with every kind of UK housing stock represented. We cast miniature families reflecting the diversity of the population. We made a stream of baby urine glisten as vibrantly as it would in the memory.

Reminder x proximity = purchase.