ING

Background:

One of the largest financial service companies in the world, the Dutch insurer, ING Group, has over 160 years of experience and provides a wide array of banking, insurance and asset management services in over 50 countries. ING hired ADAMS to develop a new approach to participant enrollment communications for their defined contribution retirement plan practice in the United States.

ING’s existing participant communications ranked poorly within the industry—evidenced by low participation, deferral, and rollover rates. ING wished to improve their results by developing industry-leading participant communications while achieving greater use of ING managed portfolios.

Research:

Looking to identify industry best practices and effective communication practices in similar fields, ADAMS:

  • Reviewed current industry leaders approach and materials
  • Benchmarked industry results and ranked ING among their peers
  • Interviewed key ING personnel
  • Interviewed 30 plan sponsors
  • Observed 20 plan enrollment meetings
  • Researched plan participant behavior studies performed by leaders in the field

Strategy:

Working within the guidelines of the stringent ING brand, ADAMS was able to identify, develop, and implement a unique brand strategy for ING’s defined contribution plan enrollment material. The scope of the project required developing a brand— naming, visual, and written (voice)— that could be applied to printed materials, electronic presentations, presenter scripts, and e-marketing materials that tied into a national advertising campaign and aligned with the well known corporate brand.

The brand developed for defined contribution enrollment materials had to be flexible— appropriate for industries from manufacturing, to healthcare, to professional services.

Like most financial services organizations, ADAMS found that ING suffered from the commoditization of their offering. To make the best use of their brand and positioning, ADAMS recommended:

  • Extending the current national ad campaign to the enrollment system, playing off consumer awareness to engage and enroll participants.
  • Develop and use appropriate personas throughout the enrollment process by engaging a modular system that could be tailored to varied industries and socioeconomics.
  • Simplify the enrollment process, make it more interactive, and enroll all meeting attendees at the time of the initial meeting.
  • Develop audience-appropriate voice, copy, and visuals.
  • Drive participants to the Web site for further information, planning, and future communications.
  • Developing model portfolios to increase deposits to ING.

Development:

ADAMS developed three concepts working within strict ING brand standards that included a naming convention, visual look and feel, and content voice. All three concepts met the objectives established in the strategic portion of the project. Results of market testing concluded:

  • The new approach was more compelling and provided a better case to enroll and defer at a greater rate.
  • The tone and voice of the new approach to be more motivational.
  • A heightened awareness of the benefits of investing in managed portfolios.
  • Current practices are too complicated— excessive information is presented leading to greater paralysis at time of enrollment meeting.
  • The new approach would be more compelling to rollover existing retirement assets.

Conclusion:

Developing sound strategy within a strong and recognizable brand can prove to be a difficult process. Working with ING, ADAMS was able to identify gaps in the defined contribution enrollment system, research and strategize how those gaps could be closed, and develop a brand identity that stayed within the parent brand. ADAMS took ING’s defined contribution offering, a financial services commodity, in a new direction that not only visually set it apart from other defined contribution plans but created a better user experience.