case studies

james hay sipp campaign

James Hay, the established wealth management arm of the Santander Group, specialise in the provision of pension and investment services and products to investors and Financial Advisers. Their business is based on a reputation for excellence which has been built through a proven ability, for over 25 years, to meet the service needs of their clients, to whom they offer unrivalled technical and professional support.

the brief

Our client, James Hay, required our marketing and creative expertise to develop the online elements of their new SIPP campaign. In the current climate, James Hay wanted to deliver a reassuring and positive message to IFAs, offering investors a choice that rivals almost any other fund supermarket provider.

The campaign was supported by a strength message that James Hay, with the backing of Grupo Santander is a reliable and trusted SIPP provider with an exemplary level of service for IFAs. The full campaign would encompass press, direct mail, outdoor and PR as well as the online promotional elements and all were required to support one another and deliver a consistent and unified message.

The challenge was put to LEWIS to deliver striking online solution that could be tailored to a wide variety of formats in what would be James Hay’s most impactful campaign to date. Tax year end deadline, the 1st of April 2009, was to act as a purposeful call to action, encouraging IFAs to advise their clients to top up their pension funds before this date.

our idea

A newspaper creative was developed and presented to the client that would act as the platform to publish a variety of positive news articles which would promote James Hay’s service support and the details and benefits of their SIPP product offering. The newspaper headline ‘Uncertain Times’ was suggested as a mechanism to contrast the recent negative financial position against the positive aspects of James Hay SIPP.

The creative for this idea was initially presented by the agency Resonate, responsible for the print elements of the campaign. The challenge for LEWIS was to take a creative idea traditionally suited to print and translate that to a digital environment.

the outcome

The completed campaign positioned James Hay as reliable experts through rewriting the ‘Uncertain Times’ newspaper with positive and assuring financial news.

LEWIS created a full range of dynamic and informative online promotional elements for the campaign including:

A dedicated microsite which visually resembles an IFA’s desk, complete with newspaper, Blackberry, paperwork and USB stick. This allowed LEWIS to promote the benefits of James Hay’s SIPP product and various IFA support tools through positive news stories. LEWIS created three video stings using the software program, After Effects, to promote some of James Hay’s acclaimed tools such as the tax relief calculator, salary sacrifice calculator and suitability letters. The microsite also invited users to download SIPP applications and linked back to the main James Hay site.

Over 16 different formats of online banner adverts were designed and built by LEWIS to match the requirements of the media schedule developed in partnership with Feather Brooksbank. This included a full range of media rich banners including expandable formats intended for promotion across financial specialist websites such as IFA Online, FT advisor and Money Marketing. The banners were created to deliver maximum exposure through homepage takeovers and specific page sponsorship.

A personalised HTML email that creatively echoed the style of the microsite, was sent to almost 1000 IFAs across the UK to promote James Hay and their SIPP product. Additionally, LEWIS designed an editable Outlook email template enabling James Hay’s sales consultants to send out the email to their contacts direct as required.