“Annuity” is not a word that gets whispered between investors with a lot of love.

The common perception is that annuities are used to help accumulate savings for retirement. They deliver a low return, are loaded with hidden fees and are sold by salespeople for huge commissions.

“Annuities are a dumb investment.” - Nearly Every Investor

Enter Gainbridge, a new direct-to-consumer (DTC) annuity product that streamlines the buying process. No pushy salesmen, no phone tag or months-long closing process, no lifetime commitment, and no hidden fees. Just a simple, high-rate annuity.

But, we were still facing some strong headwinds. Initial concept testing was good, but not great. Even a better product could not sidestep the “stink” surrounding annuities on its own.

So, how do we short-circuit the bias that had developed against an annuity product?

We set out to find a way to reframe the preconceived notions these people had.

We didn’t have a lot of time. We needed to be in-market inside of three months. So we turned to experts - experts in Behavioral Economics to be exact. And we started to get more and more familiar with the concept of Loss Aversion and the powerful effect it has on people. It turns out “loss” is twice as motivating as “savings.” Fear of loss has an overwhelming effect on us. Almost an irrational one. That was it - that was the wrench to throw into their decision-making process.

Instead of positioning this investment product as a vehicle for accumulation - one that would be subjected to the “rational” comparisons with more tempting rates and returns - we decided our best way to address the challenge was to make Gainbridge a tool for aversion.

And with that, we had our strategy: Always be hedging with Gainbridge.

We knew the “Self-Directed” Investor we were going after was a student of history.

With this in mind, we created a vehicle that would allow us to encourage the steady investing behavior inside ALL these people through real, cautionary tales of historical market frenzies.

The idea, “If only they had Gainbridge,” launched on March 7, 2019 with a captivating film about the very first speculative financial bubble in history: Tulip Mania (1636).

The film (“Tulip”), like many of the campaign elements, ends with a question:

Would things have turned out differently if they had Gainbridge?

Print, OOH, and various digital media allowed us to tell more stories where we romanced the virtues of disciplined investing, while we triggered just the right amount of loss aversion at the same time.

Just six weeks into launch and over 60% of the people that viewed our campaign would consider purchasing a Gainbridge annuity as a result. And, nearly 32% of these people intend to make a purchase “in the next few months.”

That’s 2x the industry average for any financial services brand...let alone a product with as much “stink” on it as an annuity.

"It’s hard to make financial services fun and sexy - [Gainbridge] did it.” - Campaign Magazine

What is an Annuity?

An annuity is a financial product that pays out a fixed stream of payments to an individual, primarily used as an income stream for retirees. Annuities are created and sold by financial institutions, which accept and invest funds from individuals and then, upon annuitization, issue a stream of payments at a later point in time. The period of time when an annuity is being funded and before payouts begin is referred to as the accumulation phase. Once payments commence, the contract is in the annuitization phase.

Source: Investopedia.com. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/annuity.asp.