Supplemental insurance isn’t sexy. But with the right media strategy, even insurance brands can engage new (and younger) audiences.
Aflac, for one, dove deep into social media last summer with its first-ever TikTok campaign. But just pouring more money into social media isn’t enough to reach more people.
One of the most significant changes Aflac has made to its marketing plans since last year was moving more creative budgets in-house.
“The digital media landscape is only getting more fractured, but our budgets aren’t getting any larger,” Garth Knutson, Aflac’s CMO, told AdExchanger.
In-housing is one important step toward making the same media dollars work harder. For Aflac, the point of in-housing is to cut down its creative budget so the company can spend more money running ad campaigns that can span the (oh so fragmented) digital video sphere, from traditional TV all the way to TikTok.
The insurance company’s March Madness campaign, which ran earlier this month, is a good example of what that channel diversification looks like.
Aflac in the house
Aflac launched its creative studio in 2017, which today includes more than half of the brand’s marketing employees.
But it wasn’t until late January of this year that Aflac’s embrace of creative in-housing came to fruition, Knutson said.
Between a splintering digital marketplace and macroeconomic concerns, it makes sense that Knutson made doubling down on in-housing his first order of business when he was promoted to CMO in January.
“We need to make more and more content that fits into different video channels and ad placements,” he said, including streaming and social media. And that involves figuring out how to do more with less.
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Aflac Studio now has double the amount of resources it did in 2020 and is able to do much of the work that external agencies used to handle.
The in-house agency team can shoot and produce video ad creative “very fast, very cheap and at a very high quality,” Knutson said. And the less Aflac spends on creative, the more it can spend on actually running ad campaigns.
But although Aflac’s in-house team is focusing on TikTok and other organic social channels, such as Twitter and Instagram, that doesn’t mean the brand is doing away with its agency partners, which include Spark Foundry and MELT.
“Our agencies aren’t going anywhere,” Knutson said, adding Aflac’s marketing team can be most efficient by pooling resources between Aflac Studio and other agencies.
Aflac’s in-house studio, for example, assumed the lead on producing all of the organic content for Aflac’s social media channels. And, while Aflac Studio has produced a few broadcast spots before, TV commercials still mostly sit with other agency partners.
Media madness
Aflac’s March Madness campaign this month, which ran on both TV and social media, is an example of how its studio takes the reins on creative while also collaborating with agencies.
The brand shot its own content for social media, but not the TV commercials.
Even though Aflac Studio didn’t produce the TV spots itself, the studio shot what Aflac calls “pre-campaign teasers,” testimonials and behind-the-scenes footage, including real Aflac agents interviewing the famous coaches starring in Aflac’s TV commercial.
Aflac ran these teasers on social media to boost brand awareness, especially with younger generations.
Connecting the dots
Although its March Madness campaign includes TV and social, Aflac is using these channels for very different purposes.
Linear TV is to help increase overall reach with general brand awareness, including the fact that Aflac is a supplemental insurance company.
Meanwhile, CTV is for broad reach, but in a more targeted way. The company is using CTV to zero in on its target age demo (ages 25-54), for example. It’s also using streaming spots to advertise more specific types of insurance coverage, such as its dental and vision plans.
For example, Aflac can run ads on streaming services that target viewers who watch other college sports since that audience likely overlaps with its March Madness audience.
And there’s another audience bracket Aflac is starting to target more closely: women.
According to the company’s research, roughly 80% of health care-related decisions within a family are made by women. Knutson said Aflac’s customer base is a roughly 50-50 split between men and women, with plans to become more “female-leaning.”
Socializing
Social video, on the other hand, is useful for targeting specific people and driving engagement.
With the March Madness campaign, Aflac is using social channels to advertise individual insurance plans, such as vision or dental, to sports super fans. It also uses social media to retarget ads to consumers who either saw an ad on TV or visited Aflac’s website.
Social media is also a good place to pick up customer engagement by running content throughout the tournament, such as when a team wins, loses or scores unexpectedly.
But when asked about sports betting, Knutson says Aflac is staying far away. Instead, the brand is homing in on a much bigger media trend: the consumer shift toward digital media and away from linear.
And with a more focused digital marketing strategy that includes a growing in-house agency, Knutson said Aflac has high hopes for its ability to capitalize on that shift.
