The company has launched Get Life Right, to "spark a major conversation with New Zealanders about the importance of risk and taking responsibility for themselves and their families,” managing director Namoi Ballantyne says.
The idea of the campaign is to start a conversation with New Zealanders about life insurance. Partners Life's view was that its not about old couples or families in the park. Rather it has chosen mortality as the first topic.
Death is something which happens to everyone and the campaign is designed to get people thinking about how they prepare themselves. The campaign uses "Kiwi humour" to address the subject.
The message of the campaign is "Get Life Right".
Interestingly the campaign isn't pushing Partners Life, or any of its products.
“The campaign is about educating people. The ads don’t say ‘buy now’, or recommend a product. They are designed to raise the tide of awareness of the risks people face in their daily lives,” Ballantyne says.
“We will measure the success of the campaign by the growth of the overall insurance market over time for all providers.”
Partners says it can do this as it now has "scale, momentum and support as a business" to do a multi-million, multi-year campaign.
The company is trying to move from being an "efficient fulfiller of demand" to generating demand for advisers.
Partners Life chief sales officer Tony Arthur says Partners Life has built success on building partnerships with advisers and this is the next step.
The company aims to be "the champion of independent advice" in New Zealand.
General manager marketing and product Kris Ballantyne says the company has booked 200 television slots in the first week, has become a partner to Sparks Rugby World Cup coverage, and will use many other mediums including bus backs, bus stop and social media.
The target market is everyone between 25 and 54; that is a total of 2.17 million people.
The life insurance industry has been under a significant amount of scrutiny and launching a nationwide advertising campaign seems a strange thing to do.
However, Tony Arthur says "now is the prefect time to support the work you (advisers) do every day."
He says growth comes through periods of change and this is one of those times.
