I gave retirement advice a behavioral science makeover. John Oliver noticed.
The obstacle was never financial literacy, it was how brains are wired. So we took five behaviors and made each one visible, tangible and fixable: filmed experiments with real people, sculptural out-of-home built by hand, and tools that turned the insight into something to act on.
ROLE:
Concept · Art Direction · Spatial Design · Design Direction
AGENCY:
Droga5
CLIENT:
Prudential
SCOPE:
360 platform: TV, OOH, digital, live events, interactive tools
The challenge
The average American had only $38,000 saved for retirement. The tools built to help weren't helping: cold, clinical, and speaking a language most people didn't understand. The real obstacle was never a lack of financial literacy. It was how our brains are wired. Prudential needed a way to humanize that, and to show people that what stood between them and a secure future was behavior they could actually change.
What I did
Ran it for three years. I led graphic design, spatial design and concept across the platform's campaigns and content, developed in partnership with professors from leading universities. We tackled five common behaviors head on, and for each one the platform helped people understand the behavior first, then gave them a real way to start changing it. Made the proof myself. I was brought onto an already award-winning account to keep the momentum going. I developed the concepts, the live experiments and the TV spots that came out of them, interactive tools, and directed the full out-of-home campaign.
Awards:
25% brand perception lift
72% consideration lift 4 years
100+ pieces of contentAWARDS Cannes Bronze Cyber Lion · D&AD Yellow Pencil Nominee, Digital Marketing · Webby Award · Andy Awards Gold · Andy Gold Integrated · One Show · Effie Sustained Success · FCS Awards, Best in Show · FCS Awards, Gold
PRESS Freakonomics Radio, "How to Make a Smart TV Ad" · Forbes, "From Brain Science To Blue Stickers" · Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
The platform in full: five behaviors, four years, multiple films, out-of-home, live experiments and tools built against them. This film captures the whole award-winning campaign in a nutshell.
Working with artists including Craig Ward and Kyle Bean, the platform's typographic system was translated into three-dimensional, sculptured headlines. Every placement was crafted by hand.
Two of the platform's centerpieces were full campaigns built around real, filmed behavioral experiments, part of Prudential's "Bring Your Challenges" TV work. I developed the concept, the experiments and the spots for both. Ribbons tested how badly people misjudge how long their savings need to last, supported by a companion interactive tool. Magnets tested how optimism gets in the way of realistic planning, extended with additional content including a thought leadership talk from behavioral expert Tali Sharot.
Ribbons broke through to Last Week Tonight, where John Oliver's team spoofed it directly. Freakonomics Radio covered both spots together in "How to Make a Smart TV Ad," and Forbes covered the Optimism Bias campaign in "From Brain Science To Blue Stickers."
Prudential's traditional financial calculators, given a more engaging, human overhaul so people could act on what the platform had just shown them.
