2022 Signature Awards - Investment Education

This category is for communications to plan participants regarding investments, investment diversification, or investment changes, including programs that were successful in encouraging employees to take action on investments in their accounts, introducing new investment options, campaigns targeting pre-retirees who may have too much risk, or younger workers who may be too risk averse in their portfolios, etc.

1st Place – ADP TotalSource with Voya Financial

ADP TotalSource is a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) and offers the ADP TotalSource Retirement Savings Plan (“Plan”), a multiple employer plan. More than 5,700 employers have adopted the Plan for their approximately 146,000 participants. An analysis of how participants were investing in the Plan showed many were using the investment options incorrectly. The objectives of the campaign were to educate participants on investment basics and the Plan’s investment options, as well as educate those who are using three or more target date funds. Using a theme of “Let’s grow your retirement, together” the campaign featured various gardening/growing images and taglines such as “Does your Plan have a mix?”  “Nurture your Retirement Savings Plan” and “That’s a bit mulch!” A kickoff email was sent to the employers to learn what their participants were going to receive. Messages to participants were sent in a series of emails and in print as a mailer and postcard all with a QR code. Videos were available on a microsite. The results were good: emails to more than 170,000 participants had an average open rate of 20 percent, more than 9,900 or 5.8 percent of participants watched a video after receiving the email series and from 12/7/2021 to 2/11/2022 815 people made changes to their investment allocations. Even though the campaign occurred late in the year, the action rate shows that it has been effective. This campaign won because of these solid results and because the consistent theme and clever play on that was very engaging and creative. Additionally, varied types of communications were used to address participants of all levels.
 

2nd Place – Wells Fargo & Company with Empower

Wells Fargo & Company has more than 269,000 active and terminated deferred participants in its 401(k) plan. The investment education campaign focused on educating participants on the new advisory services made available to them, engaging participants to choose the level of assistance needed to build their investment strategy and education on the broad range of investment options within the 401(k) plan. Live webinars with Q&A that were recorded as a Brainshark for later viewing were used to deliver the information. To promote the webinars, emails, a brochure, and a flyer comparing the do-it-myself and do-it-for me investment approaches were used. A tag line of “A retirement strategy as unique as you” with an image of a paper airplane taking off drove the message of the personalization of the investment education. The results showed that meeting attendance by those who registered was high. The campaign was a winner because the Brainshark recording had different sections that could be referenced separately making it a good way to not overwhelm employees, and the style of the campaign was consistent with the culture of a financial services company.