Designing and running the online and offline media plan.
Putting the data to work to build a programme combining recognition and conversion campaigns.
Orchestrating an efficient media strategy, backed by the data.
- Period
- Since 2021
- Services
- Marketing Mix Modeling
- Audits
- Media planning
- Commerce
- Media
- Landing page
- Advertising assets
- Decoupling
- Client
- Retraites Populaires
- Conference
- Perspective 4
Retraites Populaires is an institution of the canton of Vaud, active in life insurance and occupational pensions. It was founded in Switzerland — in Lausanne — in 1907.
Our relationship with Retraites Populaires began in 2021 with an advisory engagement, guiding the marketing teams in their decisions. To analyse the performance of their media strategy, we ran a series of data analyses, and were able to model an omnichannel reattribution system that calculates the impact of each announcement. Marketing Mix Modeling let us structure an optimal annual media plan, tied to the seasonality of the market and to their objectives.
Today we are part of the client’s marketing and communication teams, as their overall agency; we are responsible for the media budget (offline and online), for the inbound acquisition strategy, and for coordinating the creative partners who produce the advertising material.
Challenge - Hitting the lead targets while establishing the recognition of the brand and its products, all within a fixed dedicated budget.
The method we adopted to get there: 1. draw on the data to improve the performance of their media campaigns; 2. structure the announcements by theme; 3. run campaigns that serve the brand’s recognition, alongside commercial activations across the whole product portfolio.
The main challenges we had to meet with Retraites Populaires fall into three categories:
Improving performance.
Retraites Populaires’ main objective is to generate quality leads, so as to reach the annual sales targets on the most efficient budget possible.
Rebranding.
Retirement planning is not at the front of younger people’s minds. Yet the earlier the subject is faced, the greater the benefit to the insured. Positioning the offers with the new generation is therefore strategic.
Brand awareness.
Analysing the data showed us that for Retraites Populaires, recognition plays a very important part in acquiring leads.
1. Improving the performance of the media campaigns
Retraites Populaires’ main objective is to generate quality leads, so as to reach the annual sales targets on the most efficient budget possible.
bright’s task is therefore to find the optimal media mix, one that acquires as many customers as possible without pushing the cost of acquisition up. So we have to propose a media mix flexible enough to adapt during the year, so as to be present at the right moment and to acquire each lead through the right channel, keeping its acquisition cost down while reaching the production volumes set annually. And to carry that strategy across the whole range of products and services the institution offers.
2. Rebranding
Retirement planning is not at the front of younger people’s minds. Yet the earlier the subject is faced, the greater the benefit to the insured.
So Retraites Populaires designed, with the agencies Hymn and Messieurs.ch, a new brand campaign aimed at making Retraites Populaires known to people between 20 and 30, resting on a promise: to be there for them at every stage of their life, and to let them realise their plans. That campaign, at first aimed at young people, was extended to the company’s other audiences during the year. The new graphic line was also carried across the whole product portfolio.
Retraites Populaires expected a digital media effort worthy of these new campaigns, which ran through 2022.
3. Brand awareness
Analysing the data showed us that for Retraites Populaires, recognition plays a very important part in acquiring leads. More than 80% of prospects come through recognition campaigns that reached them in the months before their decision. It is therefore crucial to base the media strategy largely on recognition, so as to create the reflex in the consumer once the need arises, and to educate them about retirement products.
The last, “bonus” challenge comes from having to meet all three of the above at once, which calls for a perfect balance between recognition and performance campaigns.
Strategy - Promoting Retraites Populaires’ products and services through an omnichannel media strategy driven by data science. Structuring the work in a marketing cube.
1. Media performance:
Retraites Populaires offers a palette of products answering a range of needs. Each speaks to a different customer segment, so it is essential to allocate budget to the media most relevant to each audience.
A performance reporting system — cockpits powered by Google Data Studio and Fantastics, drawing on back-office data — makes the impact of our work visible in real time. That let us allocate budgets continuously to the best-performing campaigns, product by product, against the impact of earlier work, the channel and the seasonality.
It is through our Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) model that we were able to determine the best channels: those generating the most impact at the best cost.
Analysing — anonymously — what prospects do is also an essential part of improving the campaigns. That is why we revised the tracking system slightly, so as to make the most of the data available. A continuous improvement that will let the company, in the years ahead, enjoy quality data with which to refine the reattribution model (MMM).
2. Rebranding:
2022 was the year of the rebranding. It began in April 2022 with the launch of the brand campaign aimed at young people. That campaign continued in the following months at different levels of pressure according to the season, and was widened to the other audiences along the way. A good part of the visual identity and the graphic elements was rethought and applied to the brand’s various surfaces and carried across the products — the website home page and the landing pages (brand and products) were all rebuilt.
What is more, as we said, Retraites Populaires offers a wide range of products, which can sometimes blur the different messages. Each product is now assigned to one of the following three broad themes, while keeping its own media mix allocation.
là, pour la vie.
là, pour mon logement.
Là, pour mon entreprise.
Sorting them by theme simplified and harmonised the announcements, and made it easier to put the products’ USPs forward coherently.
3. Brand awareness
For this objective, we coordinated offline and online recognition campaigns across more than eight different channels, through the whole year. Alongside them, an educational campaign was put in place. The aim is to raise awareness and to guide, through advice, future customers on the themes of occupational pensions and life insurance, while building a relationship between those prospects and Retraites Populaires.
That let us enrich the customer database, set out the benefits of the products, and bring early prospects into a nurturing programme.
Structure the announcements around strong pillars.
Steer conversion campaigns by product, with the data.
Build a digital customer journey for each product.
Inbound campaigns, to bring the CRM into the strategy.
Strategy - Putting a creative production programme in place.
Through the cross-cutting studio, make the most of the creative material designed by the agencies Hymn and Messieurs, so as to fit the communication of the services and products while holding the coherence of the brand’s new positioning.
Creative
Building creative advertising masters, and decoupling
Creative that fits the codes of every format.
To build coherence across all of the brand’s announcements, we designed an Ads guidelines document framing the announcements tied to recognition and activation campaigns. The guide holds the content themes and pillars, the graphic charter of the products and the brand, and above all templates for advertising assets (CTA, visuals, messaging). Each creative master was A/B tested, so as to settle the best-performing structure for the messaging.
To feed the conversion campaigns with enough advertising assets, we put in place, with the cross-cutting studio, a decoupling method able to produce — quickly, and therefore at lower cost, and with real responsiveness — the advertising material needed to feed an omnichannel media plan in constant movement. The aim is to be able to A/B test the messaging, so as to settle the best-performing advertising sets for each type of campaign (products, inbound recognition and so on).
Impact.
The 2022 results being confidential, we cannot share figures. We can nonetheless state that the objectives set were met. What is more, they were met sooner than the previous year, on a smaller dedicated budget for some of the flagship products.
Our performance campaigns reached the target for new customers, and a communication strategy focused on the canton of Vaud strengthened recognition considerably — a factor the MMM analysis showed to play an important part.
Finally, thanks to everything put in place in 2022, notably an improved tracking system and a rebranding, we built a very solid base for 2023, and we are ready to consolidate our methods and to answer our client’s questions in a fitting way, through data science.
From the very start of our work together, bright sought to understand our trades, what is at stake for us and how we work, so as to offer support fitted to us and so reach our commercial objectives. The teams listen to what we ask and to what is particular to us. Their professionalism has let us build our own skills.
Bright supported us in putting an overall media strategy in place, on- and offline. Through their expertise and the data gathered, we had in hand what we needed to decide the split of budget between the brand and the products, to set how much pressure to put behind recognition against acquisition objectives, and to detect the best-performing media mix for each product.
It is a pleasure to work with an agency that is genuinely data-centric. Rebuilding the tracking gives us more visibility on our conversions and paths to purchase, and bringing the back-office data in has let us steer the campaigns by ROI and allocate our budgets better.
