If you are having trouble understanding just how the humble brussel sprout is quickly becoming one of the most potent symbols of financial planning in this country, then speak to John Cowan.
Cowan is the man not only responsible for the NRMA’s latest venture into financial planning, ClearView Retirement Solutions, but also the accompanying sprout-soaked marketing campaign.
If you are not living in New South Wales, where ClearView is exclusively pitched, then you have missed possibly one of the more memorable financial services marketing efforts of recent times, and definitely one of the more annoying.
Since ClearView’s launch in February 2002, it has been difficult for anyone in New South Wales to turn on the television, listen to the radio or read a newspaper without being confronted with the rather peculiar mantra that “everybody deserves more sprouts”.
However, the NRMA’s sprouts campaign is more than just another example of nuisance advertising. It is also a very deliberate effort to re-position the NRMA’s financial services division, through ClearView, into a very specific space: the middle-Australia retiree market.
According to Cowan, the sprout was chosen as the mascot for ClearView because research had indicated that more than anything else, it elicited a strong response, good or bad, from retirees.
“The creative device of sprouts is used in the ads as a metaphor for that something extra that we all want in retirement. Everybody knows the ads aren’t about sprouts, so it starts people thinking about that something extra,” he says.
But the NRMA’s decision to pitch ClearView, its only business venture in the financial planning market, to the retirees of middle Australia goes way beyond just sprouts.
Cowan’s group actually conceived the ClearView concept way back in November 2000, after an internal review of the NRMA’s financial services division found it was being held back by a lack of focus.
From there, the decision to target the retiree market exclusively with the new venture was a simple one. Not only is a growing proportion of the entire population moving into retirement age, but a good deal of the NRMA’s existing customer base comes from the middle-Australia retiree demographic.
The positioning of ClearView to attract the retiree market also extends right down to the products now underlying the group.
ClearView will offer clients a limited range of multi-manager investment options, with monies managed by a small number of different fund managers and all sold under the same fee structure.
“For older people in that middle-Australia market it is all about simplicity, so we haven’t given them the choice to pick between 100 different managers,” Cowen says.
So far, Cowan is confident the campaign to position ClearView has, for the most part, hit its mark.
Anecdotal evidence suggests the majority of those prompted by the sprouts campaign to contact ClearView are in fact retirees, although the jury is still out on whether they will turn out to be the middle-Australia retirees that ClearView is so keen to attract.
“The way the ads were supposed to work was all about positioning ClearView into a particular space. So far we have received more than our budgeted level of calls to our call centre since the start of the campaign, but we now have to convert those calls into appointments for our financial planners, and then hope to convert those appointments into clients,” Cowen says.
The number of financial planners employed by the NRMA had actually dropped in the lead up to the launch of ClearView, as those advisers who did not feel in tune with the new business departed the group.
But, given the level of interest created by the sprouts campaign, ClearView is now actively recruiting for financial planners.
The success means the NRMA has started to taper off the promotion of ClearView to the general public, although the sprouts campaign will continue to have a significant media profile for some time.
The group is now focusing on turning its marketing effort, sprouts and all, towards the existing NRMA customer base with, amongst other things, a direct mail campaign.
According to Cowan, the NRMA has given itself until the end of this financial year to judge how well its plans for ClearView are proceeding.
But the NRMA is also looking further ahead to the next stage of development for ClearView.
At present, the group is considering two options. Either it will launch ClearView into states other than New South Wales, where the NRMA brand is less well-known, or it will pitch the new business to individuals who are planning their retirement, rather than just those who are already retired.
One way or the other, ClearView will effectively be looking to broaden its target market.
The sprouts, however, will stay.
“We won’t be employing any other vegetables. The sprouts have been very good to us,” Cowen says.
