Adrienne Connell, Vice-President, High Road Communications, talks about the success of BrighterLife.ca.

1. CASE STUDY: High Road Communications’
Brighter Life for Sun Life Financial
Posted in April 24, 2013
Nicole Laoutaris
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By: Miranda Germani
Today’s the big day: the ACE Awards gala takes place this evening! The ACE committee is busy at
Arcadian Court rolling out the (metaphorical) red carpet at this very moment. Just like the Oscars’
broadcast rehashes past years’ movies and fashion before the big show, this is the perfect moment for
us to take a look into our past with an ACE Awards standout.
The Sun Life Financial and High Road Communications teams took home an award last year with the
BrighterLife.ca initiative, awarded in the Digital Communications Campaign category.
I was pleased to talk to Adrienne Connell, Vice President, High Road Communications before the
2013 ACE Awards officially arrive, about the success of this digital campaign.
Can you tell me about your winning campaign?
BrighterLife.ca is Sun Life Financial’s innovative digital content marketing platform. It is aimed at
helping Canadians answer their money, health, family and career questions in an informal, engaging
and no-pressure way. The goal is to add real value to Canadians through the power of relevant,
credible, useful content. It’s a revolutionary approach that puts the needs of consumers at the forefront
and it’s helped Sun Life to connect with a whole new target audience.
What was the objective and why was it so successful?
Sun Life Financial wanted to engage consumers earlier in the sales cycle, before they had considered
Sun Life or were even aware that they had a need that might be met by a financial product. They
already had digital marketing platforms to engage both prospective and current customers but needed
a way to reach consumers who were just at the beginning of their buying journey. Typically,
customers have a trigger event, such as starting a family, changing careers or thinking about
retirement. Enter BrighterLife.ca to engage a wide span of Canadians from young professionals, to
young families through to mature families and pre-retirees. It’s been a success because there is an
incredible team of individuals behind it that ensure we’re creating magnetic content that is portable,
and by that I mean letting audiences consume the content in the channels of their choice, be that on
the website, e-newsletters, Facebook, Twitter or RSS. They also make a phenomenal commitment to
activating that content across channels leveraging a combination of paid, earned, owned and shared
channels.
How did winning an award contribute to the agency’s brand?
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2. At both High Road and Sun Life we’re very proud to work on this award-winning initiative. It’s an
amazing honour to be recognized by our peers in the industry for creating innovative ideas that
hopefully inspire other brands and it has helped to solidify our voice as thought leaders in the
Canadian content marketing space.
What inspired you to submit?
We are always committed to celebrating our client’s successes, and awards such as this play a key
role in recognizing their great work and our continued partnership together.
What were the challenges associated with submitting an award?
While we are always looking at metrics to evaluate a program’s success, distilling those down to the
highlights and capturing the essence of what makes a particular effort such as BrighterLife.ca unique
isn’t always quick to pull together. It took support from Sun Life’s team and High Road’s to ensure
our submission told the story of BrighterLife.ca.
What was a “must-include”in your binder submission?
Creative samples of the writing on BrighterLife.ca and the user experience design of the site. We also
made sure we included materials that spoke to the overall strategy and goals. Finally we included
materials that illustrated the impact we’ve had with BrighterLife.ca and the vibrant community we
have built around the brand.
How did it feel to receive your award at the gala?
Really good! We enjoyed a chance to bring our two teams together for a night of celebration and fun.
What advice would you give to other entrants?
Submit! Be creative in your submission while giving a clear indication of what you set out to do, how
you did it and what you ultimately achieved.
MEMBERS BLOG
ace awards, Adrienne Connell, CPRS ACE, High Road Communications, Sun Life Financial
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