Simplicity Lone Beacon’s latest platform puts a fun twist on standard Retirement advertising by personifying a solid financial plan as a superhero character – Captain Retirement! Along with his heroic antics, we’ve also created a wide breadth of marketing materials that detail his triumph over common retirement obstacles. The Captain Retirement campaign features comic strips, email and Facebook marketing materials, and a downloadable guide. This project brings creativity and narrative to the customer experience while focusing on the biggest retirement concerns of Americans nearing and in retirement.
Captain Retirement’s Challenges
Captain Retirement faces 5 main areas of challenge: Social Security, taxes, estate planning, retirement accounts, and long-term care. All of these topics are crucial components of a retirement plan, but talking numbers and the details of the tax code can be complicated and doesn’t necessarily grab the interest of a lot of people. Captain Retirement is meant to draw in prospects and present the journey to retirement in a compelling and clear narrative form. Created by our team of graphic designers, Captain Retirement fights the evils of retirement planning obstacles through vibrant imagery and interesting storylines.
Who Is Captain Retirement?
The idea for Captain Retirement came out a brainstorming session. Our marketing manager Christy Parmenter came up with the idea of having an identifiable character – like Flo from Progressive or the Geico Gecko – to promote a brand. Many retirement marketing materials present an idealized version of retirement as simply a time of freedom from work and worries about money. This is far from reality for many people. When it comes to retirement today, there is a lot of enjoyment, but there are also significant obstacles to overcome, from replacing the worth of a paycheck to dealing with market drops. The character of Captain Retirement allows us to visually represent obstacles and solutions in a way no has ever done before.
Marketing Materials: Dynamic Facebook Ads, Landing Pages, Email Sequence, and Whitepapers
The Facebook ads begin by introducing captain retirement and the “villain” he will defeat. Viewers then have the option to click on one of five ads portraying a different retirement obstacle. From there, the viewer is brought to a landing page, known as the “401-Kave”. They can get a downloadable guide and an “adventure comic strip” in exchange for their information. The comic strip tells the story of the “villains” of retirement planning, and how Captain Retirement defeats them. The guide contains important information about Social Security, taxes minimization strategies, estate planning, retirement account rules, and long-term care costs.
From there, contacts are entered into an automatic email sequence and receive a new email every two weeks informing them of Captain Retirement’s latest adventure. This builds engagement by offering access to a different financial whitepaper with each adventure.
Simplicity Lone Beacon’s Marketing Ecosystem
We believe that all the elements of the marketing ecosystem need to work together and present a consistent message. The Captain Retirement campaign consists of Facebook creatives, email marketing sequences, website pages, and downloadable guides. All of these marketing materials work together to build engagement and create interest and trust over the course of months. It is a truly comprehensive campaign that required the unique skill sets of several Simplicity Lone Beaconites. Get in touch to learn more about this unique offering!
