Our partnership with theSkimm aimed to increase awareness and consideration of John Hancock to theSkimm’s active and loyal readers. When millennial women hear “John Hancock,” the first thing they think of is likely the Declaration of Independence, not a 150+ year old financial services company that is their consideration set. The audience does not associate John Hancock as a brand that can help them achieve their financial goals, from their first budget through their retirement.
Through NPS, we learned that women are looking for fundamentally different types of content than men when it comes to finances. They want simple, easy to understand language that is personalized to their needs. Most importantly, it has to come from a trusted source. We chose to partner with theSkimm for our Face the Future branded content series because theSkimm and John Hancock are both looking to do the same thing for consumers: simplify a message and make money easy to understand. theSkimm has proven experience doing just that for their reader, whether it’s news or lifestyle. When we started our partnership, the publisher had just started building their Skimm Money platform to simplify finance for their audience: a millennial female with buying power.
From September 2019 - January 2020, the strategy for our brand marketing team was to bring John Hancock into the forefront for Skimm readers, within the channels where they are already consuming Skimm content. First, we started with a sponsorship of theSkimm’s first ever book tour for the release “How to Skimm Your Life.” The sponsorship included a branded John Hancock bookmark in every book given out on the 10-city tour and custom content on social channels at each stop, calling out key finance conversations discussed at the events. It brought John Hancock up close and personal to loyal Skimm readers and started our conversation with them.
Next, we worked hand-in-hand with theSkimm’s research and editorial teams to create content that Skimm readers were hungry for. Each content piece opens with an insight about theSkimm’s readers (e.g. did you know 36% of them are currently saving to buy a home?) We published 5 custom branded content pieces on a co-branded hub, called Face the Future, within Skimm Money and used the power of existing Skimm properties to drive users to the articles. We aimed to improve their financial literacy in words that they could understand, digest and quickly action on. We leveraged theSkimm’s Daily Newsletter for custom takeovers driving back to content pieces on the Face the Future hub. Within the newsletter, we also educated readers on what the FIRE movement is and provided quick hitting financial education before they clicked. Custom branded paid and organic social content on theSkimm’s properties drove additional traffic to the content pages. Lastly, we used the suite of theSkimm’s arsenal of podcasts to takeover the Skimm This news podcast for 3 weeks incorporating tips from each of the content pieces from the campaign. We included preroll and midroll within their signature podcast, Skimm’d From the Couch, and we were the first ever brand to sponsor a custom question in the Lightning Round of the podcast interview, asking the guest of the podcast what financial advice they would give their younger self.
Our legacy brand resonated with this audience in a bigger way than we could have expected. We achieved our awareness goals with a 22+ point lift in awareness, a 15+ point lift in consideration of our brand and an 86% favorability rating with theSkimm audience following the Face the Future campaign. Knowing that other financial partners typically see around an 8+ point lift in awareness, we knew our content resonated above the rest. We over delivered in media impressions by 120% and saw a 7+ point increase in the sentiment that “John Hancock gives people a more meaningful view of their full financial picture.”
But the results went beyond our campaign objectives. We found that Skimm readers taking further action and visiting the John Hancock website from content pieces on the Face the Future hub. This audience was more engaged than any other source of traffic to the website in 2019. These readers were visiting the site, spending 4+ minutes interacting with content and to our surprise, taking the next step to fill out a financial planning form to speak with a financial advisor. 60+ Skimm readers have submitted a form to speak with a financial planning expert, proving that simplified and concise co-created language from a trusted brand and publisher empowers millennial females to educate themselves and take action to prepare themselves for their financial future, whatever that may look like.
