• by Tanya Gazdik , September 15, 2015

John Hancock’s latest iteration of its “Life Comes Next” TV campaign aims to drive traffic to a second screen where viewers can see how the stories begun in the ads end.

The 30-second TV ads show the beginning of a scenario and cut out at critical point, leaving the viewer imagining how it might resolve. Viewers are prompted to go to HancockNext.com to see the ways that life can unfold via multiple endings.

The plots center on financial implications such as deciding to obtain life insurance protection for a new family, affording college, building wealth and planning for retirement or long-term care needs. Each ending includes a compelling statistic to add further context and get people thinking about their own life preparedness such as average student loan debt, the percentage of mothers who are the top earners in their families, and the percentage of Americans who have a plan for long-term care.

The goal for this flight of the campaign, which began in 2014, is to drive 1 million unique visits to the site with an average time of four minutes or more. Of the time spent watching TV, the brand’s target audience spends as much as 70% of that time with a second device active.

The target audience is mass affluent, men and women ages 35-65, says Jim Bacharach, VP, brand, marketing and creative services at John Hancock.

"John Hancock's advertising has long been about human and authentic stories about people's aspirations and worries,” Bacharach tells Marketing Daily. “Second-screen behavior gives us the opportunity to tell those stories without being constrained to 30 seconds and to let the viewer find the story that's most meaningful to them."

The new ads, created by advertising agency Hill Holliday, are slated to run from September through December and then again in late March for the spring.

Media will include NFL games on NFL Network like Chargers vs. Raiders and Redskins vs. Eagles, college football like Michigan vs. Ohio State, ND vs. USC, Alabama vs. LSU across NBC, ABC and CBS as well as golf like the BMW Championship and cable placements like Discovery Channel (Bering Sea Gold), Food (Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, Cutthroat Kitchen), HGTV (House Hunters and Fixer Upper), History (American Restoration).

The dedicated microsite HancockNext.com includes three alternative endings for each original spot. Each of the endings closes with the tagline: “When life comes, be prepared for it.”  Consumers can join the conversation at #LifeComesNext.

"What's different this time is that we are incorporating some humor into the scenarios," Bacharach says. "For most people, these types of conversations -- about having enough money to live on, or buying life insurance -- often are difficult and many of us use humor or irony to diffuse the awkwardness. We believe this approach is consistent with our tradition of depicting real-life conversations in a realistic way."