Constance O'Brien is gearing up online marketing activities for John Hancock that must target both consumers and financial professionals.
Constance O'Brien is AVP, integrated communications for John Hancock. John Hancock holds premier market positions-- 95 percent of U.S. consumers are aware of the John Hancock brand for financial services. The John Hancock companies provide solutions for eight of consumer’s top 10 financial concerns, including the need to plan for retirement, the cost of healthcare/medical expenses, outliving savings and financial security after retirement. Hundreds of thousands of distributors have access to John Hancock branded products, through selling agreements with more than 1,100 non-captive organizations.
iMedia: What's your current greatest challenge when it comes to marketing in general, and interactive marketing, specifically? How are you tackling them?
Constance O'Brien: John Hancock has two target audiences-- the consumer and the financial professional. In addition, we are a decentralized company. We have limited shared services and individual business lines. Finding innovative ways to create awareness and preference for John Hancock online as well as interact with each target audience and measure it is my opportunity.
iMedia: With which online marketing tools (email, behavioral targeting, display advertising, etc.) has your company experienced marketing success in recent months?
O'Brien: John Hancock has not been online in a meaningful way until the late '90s. While there are websites (and lots of them), this has been the extent of the online activities.
iMedia: Online video is coming of age. Has it impacted your marketing yet? Do you plan to do more of it soon?
O'Brien: We are using online video on our consumer site as well as on our company intranet.
iMedia: Consumer-generated content is scary for many brands because of their inability to control it. How do you view the topic? Have you had much experience dealing with it yet? Any advice for other marketers?
O'Brien: We are interested in the power of consumer-generated content; however, we have so many legal issues it will take us some time to figure this out. Word of mouth is great for our financial professionals-- it's likely their best source of leads. So content powered by their customers could be very powerful.
iMedia: Is there another brand you admire for how its agencies are using interactive media to either increase branding or sell it? If so, why and what have you learned from that brand?
O'Brien: I am always looking for companies whose business model is analogous to ours. To date, there isn't a financial services company that stands out for me. The car and airline industries have similar challenges to John Hancock so I am always seeing what we can learn from them. At the end of the day, we do not sell direct so there is only so far we can go in the marketing curriculum.
iMedia: What are you most proud of from the past year? Why, and what should other marketers learn from that?
O'Brien: My focus has really been on helping to integrate the marketing materials for financial professionals. Unfortunately this is very process driven and we have not yet tackled the innovation piece.
iMedia: Anything else you'd like to add?
O'Brien: John Hancock is just gearing up. It will be interesting to see where we are next year at this time.
Dawn Anfuso is senior editor of iMedia Connection.