With the current economic environment, there’s been a big question on a lot of Canadians’ minds: “Am I going to be okay?”

Particularly, in retirement. That’s driven Great-West Life to launch its HelloLife retirement brand, a program around managing income in retirement (rather than long-term savings like an RRSP account).

Canadians’ worries about outliving their money in retirement was behind the new brand, says Jay Donnelly, VP of marketing at Great-West Life. Specifically, HelloLife is targeting people roughly five years away from retirement and those five years into it.

“The bank offerings and most of the other insurance company offerings are fairly off the shelf whereas HelloLife is a fully-customized retirement platform,” Donnelly says of the brand’s main point of differentiation.

HelloLife first launched in Ontario in December with a 30- and 45-second TV spot featuring an office worker saying goodbye to all the annoying and obnoxious things he won’t miss about his workplace (“Goodbye, meetings about meetings.”)

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That was followed by a wider launch in January, including print, digital and online videos focused on “HelloLife Stories” of people who are within the target for the brand. For example, Mary is 60, doesn’t like risk and is planning to enter retirement on her own.

Toronto’s Camp Jefferson handled creative on the campaign and developed the new brand name, logo, identity and strategy, with Jungle Media on the media buy.

Having an optimistic but realistic approach was key for the new brand, says Andre Louis, head of strategy at Camp Jefferson.

Currently, retirement ads focus either on scare tactics or presenting an unrealistic, unrelatable lottery-win type lifestyle. Instead, HelloLife wanted to tap into the reassurance aspect.

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