Which also made it effective. Planting a seed of fear can be
good marketing, especially if it's fertilized with a bit of
inspiration. Of course, there was some inspiration in "Day One."
Viewers weren't left with the impression that Day One-ers were in
dire straits.
But Prudential's follow-up, called "Chapter Two," has
wheelbarrows full of inspiration. Through a series of web films, we
are introduced to people who are using their second acts to do
something other than squabbling about politics while playing
Mahjong. Viewers will be introduced to Jed Stevenson, a retired
newspaper man who is now a boxing coach; Yossie Ziff, a retired
business owner who's gone back to teaching; and to Carol Lewis,
above, a retired postal worker who is now a filmmaker and, in a
nice twist, a director of one of the other shorts in this
effort.
There's a long list of others in the works. Obviously, they're
meant to do more than simply inspire. They get at the fact that
people live a lot longer these days and retiring from the grind of
your daily job doesn't have to mean retiring from life, or work for
that matter. But dream "jobs" likely might not match your old lame
job in terms of salary. And you might need to take classes. Either
way, it wouldn't hurt to have money saved up that allows you to
pursue these passion projects. And Prudential can help you with
that.
Aside from the documentaries, the effort includes online ads,
outdoor and radio, social media, as well as a dedicated website --
one of those cases where "infinite scroll" makes sense and keeps
the viewer scrolling just to see what the next story is.
At the moment, it's unclear whether Prudential is going to bust
any of these down into 30-second or 60-second spots for a national
TV campaign. I'm not one to counsel blowing millions on TV just for
the sake of it, but it would seem a missed opportunity -- and a
shame -- not to draw more attention to such a good campaign.