The new service was created to provide financial planning for protection, investment, retirement and educational requirements. The insurer's newly-appointed advertising agency Euro RSCG created the campaign to differentiate the company's financial services against those of banks and to build on Great Eastern's 'Life is great' positioning.
Pre-campaign research had showed that the biggest challenge lay in consumers associating financial planning with banks and financial institutions.
"There was no way we could position Great Eastern in financial planning without at the same time giving the image of a second grade expert," said a Euro spokesperson.
"As soon as Life Planning was articulated, it became evident that this was the great idea ... an idea which would start redefining the way the company was doing business and renaming its agents as 'Great Life Planners'," she said.
The Life Planning roll-out follows a reshuffling of Great Eastern's creative and media agency line-up in Singapore and Malaysia in which incumbents in one market have been dropped only to secure the assignment in the other.
In Singapore, Euro RSCG took over creative assignments from Chuo Senko, which in turn has been awarded the Malaysian brief previously handled by SRG Asia. The Singapore media assignment has moved from Carat to Motivator, while the Malaysian account switched from MindShare to Carat, which is partner of Chuo Senko. The insurer is estimated to have a budget of S$3 million (US$1.7 million) for Singapore and RM3 million (US$770,000) in Malaysia. The reviews were carried out separately and decisions were made by the respective management teams.
In Malaysia, the account is reviewed annually to ensure that its advertising agencies "stay fresh", according to Helen Yeoh, vice-president of marketing for Great Eastern in Malaysia. However, in Singapore, the incumbents had the assignments for two years. Despite having "done an excellent job for two years", according to a spokesperson for Great Eastern, it still opted to switch agencies.
Euro's managing director Vishnu Mohan said Great Eastern's 'Life is great' proposition would remain and evolve to become stronger.