The topic of ageing and death are usually high up on the list of difficult conversations for advisers. However, one advice firm found a novel way to broach the subject earlier this month.
At a media briefing in Sydney, Astute Wheel took extreme measures, with help from a controversial marketing campaign, to kick-start the media presentation of its Astute Estate Planning software.
As journalists sat quietly, many of them salivating over the seafood menu, a pained expression of a woman about to give birth filled a projection screen in front of them.
With little warning, the baby was projected into life, travelling through a closed window and at breakneck speed through the air. If that wasn’t surprising enough, the speed the child travelled at triggered the different stages of ageing.
From silent baby to screaming babe, to toddler, boy, teen, man, the child transitioned to old man before ending his flight by crashing into a grave in a cemetery.
We’re left with the tag line: “Life is short. Play more. Xbox.”
While the campaign was not new, it was released in 2002, the use of it during AstuteWheels’s briefing was the perfect conversation starter.
