Scottish Provident asks “are you in a personal financial crisis?”

Challenge:

• Lansons was tasked with raising consumer awareness of the importance of having financial protection in place – and positions Scottish Provident as an expert in this protection area

Solution:

• The solution was to create one central campaign around the importance of customers having a ‘Financial Safety Net’ through a series of stories aimed at raising Scottish Provident’s profile in the consumer media
• A further aim of the campaign was to produce stories aimed at the trade press, which would engage IFA awareness of the campaign
• Combined marketing and PR activity was recommended in order to associate Scottish Provident with the term ‘a Financial Safety Net’ – including a report based on the protection situation in the UK and a microsite to drive IFA support

 Implementation:

• The team fielded research questions across 2,000 consumers identifying their habits to a number of trends, including:
• How long Britons had emergency financial provisions in place to safeguard their financial future
• Concerns over a lack of knowledge about state provisions and how much government financial support individuals are entitled to
• What levels of debt constitutes an individual ‘financial crisis’
• Furthermore, research was also carried out amongst IFAs to canvass their concerns of the protection industry, including:
• The number of Britons who currently have protection products, and why they are put off from purchasing
• The importance with which IFAs regard protection products
• Scottish Provident’s marketing team also put together a microsite, afinancialsafetynet.co.uk, which included statistics from the research, a regularly updated poll relating to protection, a mailshoot to IFAs about the campaign and an opportunity for IFAs to sign up to the Financial Safety Net campaign and pledge their support

Outcome:

• Since its launch in mid-October, the Financial Safety Net campaign to date has gained 273 pieces of coverage including 10 national hits, 94 regionals, 145 online and 21 trades. One story also featured on BBC Radio 4’s ‘You and Yours programme’ as well as being picked up on commercial radio. The stories have trended heavily on Twitter, where the campaign received a great amount of interest which helped it reach out to a far wider audience
• The Financial Safety Net microsite, which Scottish Provident set up at the start of the campaign in November, has now seen over 1,000 IFAs sign up to support the campaign, as a result of the joined up campaign between PR and Marketing
• There were clear spikes in traffic to the microsite following press releases – the launch of the campaign to trade magazines generated around 800 visits in one day