Ha! I made you look!
Seriously. It's time for the mortality librarian to take off her glasses, let down her hair, and enjoy some positive attention for a change.
The life insurance industry chalks up a lot of negative consumer perceptions to the fact that we have to talk about death.
However there is a sexy side to mortality, and there is opportunity if we bring it out. A recent study by LIMRA and Maddock Douglas shows that consumers are looking for the industry to be more positive. In fact, it's one of the six components to authentic communication that if handled correctly, could help unlock the potential of almost 19 million stuck shoppers.
One study participant said this:
"Offer a little bit of sunshine with it — it doesn't have to be a scary thing."
What could the sunshine possibly be? Well some might suggest the living benefits of permanent life insurance, such as cash value and its tax treatment. On the surface, this could be the "go to" answer. While those are really great, they do more to distract consumers from the negativity versus directly dealing with it.
Consumers also expect the industry to be more memorable. That is, interesting and refreshing. Could mortality be that too?
The attraction potential here is not so different from that of "The Biggest Loser". If someone were to tell you 20 years ago that America would someday be gripped by a TV show where the stars are morbidly obese people, you'd have thought they were insane. However, the show is not about being obese. It's about a contest. It's about winning. It's about despair. It's about triumph. It's about motivation. These aspects are very interesting and refreshing.
