Company: Thrivent Financial
Agency: OLSON
Timeframe: 2008
Thrivent Financial is a faith-based nonprofit membership organization that has been providing life insurance to its members for a century. Over time, it evolved to also offer financial planning services, but many of its key stakeholders were unaware of this development. To change the outdated perception to fit Thrivent's new reality, the company entrusted OLSON to launch a program that would build awareness of its financial expertise to members, prospects and the media. Execs also wanted to drive traffic to its new online retirement planning site, ThriveQ.com.
"OLSON had a strong understanding of our company's goals," says Brett Weinberg, Thrivent's director of PR, when describing the agency's collaboration with the organization on the campaign. "OLSON came to the table knowing our company and culture. That made it easier."
Reinventing The Wheel
The communications team developed a two-phased approach to re-branding the organization as a financial institution and to providing tangible proof of Thrivent's financial expertise with a new online retirement planning tool, ThriveQ.com.
The executives then segmented targets of the campaign into internal (Thrivent employees and financial reps) and external (consumers, prospective members and personal finance reporters in six key markets--Minneapolis/St. Paul, Appleton/Green Bay, Milwaukee, Phoenix, Omaha and Rochester/Mankato).
Once the planning phase was under way, the next step was to conduct research to determine the scope and breadth of people's current perceptions of Thrivent's financial planning expertise. Focus groups were held by OLSON execs to test campaign messaging. The team also reviewed and rated past press coverage and marketing materials of both Thrivent and its rivals. The research led the team to conclude that members did not have confidence in Thrivent's financial expertise, and that the organization's competitors spent up to 38 times more in paid advertising. Another key finding was that PR coverage focused primarily on charitable efforts, not financial expertise.
The implications of these findings provided further reasons to OLSON to create an innovative, integrated campaign that would be both inspirational and relatable while solidifying Thrivent's financial expertise.
A Strategic About-Face
The campaign's execution took place between September 2006 and September 2007. During this period, OLSON created a two-pronged strategy for its tactics. For the first phase, the agency sought to execute a multi-layered media mix that would surround and engage its internal and external targets. Here Thrivent would emphasize its financial expertise rather than its fraternal benefits--a clean break from past strategies.
Before launching the campaign externally, the team wanted to educate key internal audiences. For employees, the execs showcased the campaign via a lobby display and banner, skyway/elevator window clings, floor graphics and table tents. Financial reps were distributed toolkits that were filled with branded materials such as posters, stickers and booklets.
To reach out to media targets, the team chose to use unique tactics that would help the campaign and brand break through the clutter of a very crowded market--financial services.
"Given that Thrivent hadn't been on the national and major market financial media's radar in a while, we needed to reintroduce the organization to these outlets and share more than just news of a new campaign launch," says Peggy Snook, OLSON's VP and director of public relations.
To meet this challenge, the team mobilized efforts in six key markets while leveraging a national overlay of print advertising. In this instance, street teams deployed throughout high-traffic pedestrian areas in Minneapolis/St. Paul brandished and conspicuously dropped "branded" quarters that featured a sticker with the Thrivent Web site and a short, creative message. The tactic generated attention and nabbed media coverage by the Fox and ABC TV affiliates, as well as WCCO-AM.
Another creative tactic implemented by the team hinged on light projection, in which a branded image was projected on the side of Thrivent's headquarters.
Also, because market research indicated that the campaign's target audience liked to travel, the team created ceiling banners, column wraps and full-size window clings underscoring the campaign's message that would be featured at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport.
Advertising Juggernaut
Advertising played a prominent role in the rollout of the campaign. Two-page spread ads appeared in publications including Real Simple, Time, Money and Life magazines. Smaller-spaced ads also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and other key market newspapers. The outdoor advertising market received full attention with the extensive use of billboards over a three-month period.
In addition to the earlier research that preceded the campaign launch, the team did another survey with 2,500 baby boomers to determine their financial mind-set as they approached retirement.
On the heels of this survey, OLSON execs sent tropical shirts announcing "There's more to retirement than wearing a tropical shirt" to 75 top media contacts to inform them of Thrivent's forthcoming news. At this point, media outreach became very active. Meetings were arranged with reporters at Time, Parade, Redbook, Bloomberg TV/Radio, Barron's, Financial Times and Ignites.com. A national exclusive was secured with Reuters.
Considering how deadline-crazed personal finance reporters are, scoring this coverage was a coup, notes Stacy Eckes-Borys, Thrivent's senior media relations specialist. But it was a result of meeting a big challenge of the campaign: again, cutting through the clutter.
"How do you represent yourself as different [in this category] to the media? I think from a financial media perspective, as reporters need to file more stories, blog posts and meet deadlines, their time is harder to get," she says.
Press kits with limited survey results were distributed to 350 personal finance reporters at national and key market media. A local exclusive with the Star Tribune was secured, and USA Today featured several key findings in its "Snapshots."
The complete survey results were packaged in a full-length report and released in a subsequent mailing, resulting in a second wave of press coverage that included The Wall Street Journal and AARP Magazine.
Rounding It Out Online
Another important component of the campaign was the creation of ThriveQ.com, Thrivent's online financial planning site that would provide tangible proof of the organization's financial acumen.
To build awareness of the site while driving traffic, the team created a 20-question quiz to provide visitors with his/her "ThriveQ" to help gauge their retirement readiness. Thrivent partnered with Ken Dychtwald, president and CEO of retirement think tank Age Wave, to lend expertise to the site's content development.
To introduce the site to the media, the team launched a satellite media tour with Thrivent spokesperson Pam Moret, the company's executive vice president of marketing and products. A multimedia news release and audio news release complemented the media tour. Ads touting ThriveQ were placed in myriad publications.
Overall, the campaign's ROI was significant. Earned media impressions surpassed 160 million. Key highlights included coverage in Reuters, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Star Tribune, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, AARP Magazine and ABC's "Money Minute." Paid media impressions numbered 1.73 million.
Post-campaign research revealed Thrivent's brand equity to be at an all-time high with prospects. The number of prospects who said it "has a solid reputation as a financial service company" doubled, while those who believed it "offers a wide range of financial products and services" tripled.
Earned media placements featuring ThriveQ totaled nearly 22 million print, broadcast and online impressions, including hits in Kiplinger's Personal Finance, Orange County Register, Good News Broadcast (syndicated nationally), WJBK-TV Detroit, KUSA-TV Denver and WIBQ-AM Tampa. In just six months, the campaign drove nearly 90,000 visitors to the site. About 30% of visitors completed the quiz and of those, more than one-fifth registered for future ThriveQ and Thrivent correspondence.
Weinberg says he's still hearing buzz generated from the campaign. He attributes the success to the agency selection, which he considers a smart move. "It's important to work with an agency that has the right connections and doesn't just talk the talk but can deliver the results." PRN
CONTACTS:
Brett Weinberg, [email protected]; Stacy Eckes-Borys, stacy.eckes- [email protected]; Peggy Snook, [email protected]
Media Relations Lessons From The PR Trenches
For Peggy Snook, vice president and PR director of OLSON, the campaign her agency executed for Thrivent taught her two important lessons that are valuable to any communications professional conducting media outreach:
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Something old and something new: "Don't dismiss those tried-and-true tactics, such as a consumer survey or press kit, but make sure they are designed to break through the clutter and help communicate your client's news and points of difference."
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Beyond home base: "With Thrivent being based in the Midwest, it was important to bring our spokespeople to New York City for in-person meetings with influential reporters. While the goal of those meetings was to generate a story on the survey, the relationship building just offered another touch point with key media that helped pave the way for future opportunities."
The Road To Successful Integration
When putting together a PR program, it's important to include as many disciplines as possible, says Peggy Snook, VP and director of PR for OLSON. Simply incorporating a strict PR-only formula won't suffice anymore.
Following are her best practices for companies and/or agencies wishing to build buzz for a product or service, while not breaking the bank at the same time.
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A fully integrated campaign is critical to success. "Public relations, today more than ever before, should be baked into the genesis of the marketing campaign idea."
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Don't overlook adding in some nontraditional tactics to build buzz--even if it's in just one target market.
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If you do make the investment in a national study, think ahead about unique ways to repurpose the results. This strategy can apply to "whether that be segmenting the data for not just one, but a series of press releases." It can also be leveraged in a more detailed report for press or internal audiences to refer back to for future stories; and,
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Be strategic about how and when you engage a third-party spokesperson in your campaign. "While they can certainly help with media appeal and enhanced credibility, they don't need to be the center of the campaign, but rather should be used more strategically and at very specific outreach points along the way."