Actually … you can hold teenagers’ attention

Society of Actuaries
Marketing strategy, creative concept, animation, copywriting

young man holding basketball, clapping hands graphic

The Challenge

The Society of Actuaries (SOA) is the oldest and largest actuarial credentialing organization in the world. They challenged Lipman Hearne to create a digital awareness campaign targeting pre-college teens, college students, parents, teachers, and advisors in the US and Canada. The goal was to overcome awareness issues with students, their parents, teachers, and advisors–and position actuarial science as a desirable career for today’s status-driven, social media-conscience youth.

The Impact

We developed a concept around the word “Actually,” which familiarizes the audience with the word “actuary,” and plants a seed of recall. Storytelling, energetic animation, and contemporary sound design all make the executions click-resistant. They proved to be a hit with an elusive youth audience–outperforming previous efforts by large margins across every metric and throughout all paid social media channels. Skippable YouTube pre-roll ads achieved an impressive 82% video completion rate with these attention-deficient teenagers. SOA is now using the campaign in Asia and other markets to connect with young students on a global scale.

Project components

  • Social media strategy
  • Creative concept
  • Animation
  • Copywriting
Phone: Young basketball player. Top 10 business jobs
Phone: I want to be an Actuary—happy young woman
Ad sequence: Want to be a pro athlete? Actually... I want to be an actuary. Top 10 best business jobs and no agent fees
3 happy friends–female–and cute smiling avatar
Ad sequence: Want to be an influencer? Actually... I want to be an actuary. Top 25 best paying careers and not chasing likes
Phone with I Want to Be an Actuary social ad
graphic: 82 percent video completion rate on skippable ads