For years the financial services category has promised positive images of rosy futures and wonderful life-changing events to those who address their financial futures. But the majority of Americans do not – only ~1/3 actually have a financial plan written down. In fact, most people address their financial situation when forced by a “negative wake up” event, such as a death in the family, which is not as the category would want consumers to believe.

MassMutual had to break this category convention to get Americans to consider having an honest conversation about their financial futures, a conversation that requires confronting the hard truths of what the future holds. MassMutual had to make America comfortable with the uncomfortable truths that impact their financial futures. Rather than sugarcoat, we aimed to tackle these Uncomfortable Conversations head on with empathy, insight and humor.

We committed to our mission of helping people secure their futures and protect the ones they love by confronting these uncomfortable truths head-on, with humor and empathy.

We started by revealing uncomfortable truths related to our products in the context of lifelike conversations among the kind of people facing them. In so doing, we provided a window into the world of what it could be like to take on the uncomfortable.

We then expanded the campaign to take on uncomfortable truths during key cultural moments: Black History and Women’s History Months. At these tentpole moments, we exposed truths around Generational Wealth within the Black community and the incorrect portrayal of women and their finances in the media.

With each idea, we connected a statistic to the uncomfortable truth we exposed, therefore emphasizing and substantiating the importance and urgency of having these conversations and MassMutual’s role in the process.

55% of parents expect financial assistance from their children during retirement. This spot brings this uncomfortable truth to life by showing two parents come to the painful conclusion that their kids might not be the most reliable people to count on during retirement.

We applied this playful but empathetic approach to Injury and Cheering with variance to be able to meaningfully address disability income insurance and college savings planning.