THE SITUATION
In New Zealand, one in every nine adults is an AMP customer. The AMP name has been in kiwi homes for over 150 years, helping people find financial security through investment, superannuation, insurance and financial planning. But far from selling products, AMP sells relationships. The launch of AMP's Life Stages branding campaign was a recent major initiative - with a new TVC loved by customers and supported by traditional marketing avenues. There was no presence on AMP's website, so this opportunity to translate the essence of the campaign into an online world dovetailed perfectly with a pressing need to enhance the whole navigation of a site that hadn't been refreshed for several years.
THE PAIN
Take a website that was 'fairly vanilla tasting' and give it impact and flavour. Bring the website to life for a company whose promise is all about financial security through life.
Great navigation thinks from the customer's perspective.
In setting the brief, AMP Marketing and Communications Manager, Henry Popplewell, summed up the existing navigation as clean, but lacking impetus or involvement.
“Our website was based around product silos rather than customer needs and life stages, and while the information was there, it wasn't engaging. We wanted the look and feel of our Life Stages message to be very inclusive for our market - for customers of all ages and stages."
"I had a firm view of what I wanted, but Intergen impressed by the way they listened, went away and applied their knowledge and came back and said 'Great, but hey, we can make it even better - here's some creative that's clever for the right reasons and highly functional.’"
Creativity That Fits The Brief
For Sam Allen, Intergen’s project design director, it was an opportunity to dive into new industry leading technology.
"There are a lot of options out there for how to create and deliver a solution. The biggest challenge is to make sure that everyone, no matter what plug-ins, browsers, or computers they are using, can interact with what you build. We combined Flash, and the newer Javascript libraries to ensure no matter what someone visited the site with, they would get a consistent, highly engaging experience. You can't just tell someone they don't have what is needed to view a site's content. You have to provide them with a solution so they can - no matter what."
Creativity Meets Usability
Go to www.amp.co.nz and you'll be hit with upbeat music and imagery from AMP's Life Stages TV campaign. Photo images fly in, questions are posed …. Getting Started? On the home straight?
The feedback is all good, with AMP's Adviser network of over 250 impressed with what they're hearing from customers. "Punchy." "Lots of great information." "Exciting but simple." And the comment Popplewell most enjoyed from a business colleague in an unrelated field: "It's great to see a financial services company adopt such a customer focus, and the result is right on the mark, given that online is not the most tactile medium in the world."
On Time & On Budget
"Very seldom have I seen a company involved in the IT industry deliver what was promised at the price they said they would. It was so refreshing to get an honest quote to start with - and a result that was on time and to budget."
Usability Testing Holds High Value
Intergen proposed Usability Testing to ensure website users understood the concepts, imagery, language and things they were seeing. Partnering with Optimal Usability, it proved a very cost effective decision. Participants were recruited from each of AMP's target customer demographics and asked to perform tasks on a site prototype.
Popplewell comments: "As a marketer, no matter how great you think your vision is, it's always coming from your perspective and it's the customer's perspective that counts. The cost of getting it wrong is a mistake you can't risk."
THE GAIN
AMP's brand promise of financial security through life has now come to life on a website that's interactive and informative and delivers more value for AMP as a highly customer focused vehicle.