Northwestern Mutual

Life Insurance
Submitted By: Group 5
Abhishek Sarkar
Aishwarya Srivastava
Kush Patel
Saumya Kishan Singh
Shruti Jain
Sneh Khathuria
About the company

TARGET GROUP: Upper middle social class, well educated, small business
owner, executives
OCCUPATION: job professionals, business executives, attorney, small business
owner
AGE GROUP:
Born Before 1962 (Age Ranging from 35-45)
1962-1971 (Age Ranging from 25-45)
Born After 1971 (Age Ranging from 20-34)
SECONDARY TARGET GROUP: Students
 What is advertisings role at NML? What
should it be?

Role of advertising in North Western Life was Company did following activities to realize these goals.

To create awareness about the brand among The company used print media as their channel of
its policyholders and prospective policy- communication
holders Time
Producing a quality image or prestige for Newsweek
agents and/or company
U.S News & World report
To inform about the recruitment and
vacancies for being agent to college Sports illustrated
students and youngsters The budget used by the company was under $800,000 in
To give broader concepts about the value of 1970.
having life insurance They made use of professional leaders who are their
customers to feature in their advertisements
Campaigns
Karsh

To project value of life insurance by words of experience

Young men testimonial series

To target younger executives and entrepreneurs

Individuals

To focus on individuals
Issues with the current advertisement
Highly regarded among its policy-holders but had very little awareness among
the below middle-class public
Ranked thirty-fourth in awareness among fifty-five life insurance companies
Their campaigns ideas were being copied by the competitors which are
benefiting them more than the company itself
Focused on very selective target market

Role of advertisement
To emphasise on the quality of the company
Its low net costs
Differentiation from the competitors
Targeting more than one group of customers
What recommendations do you have regarding
the strategy issues raised at the end of the case?
Target Audience
Northwestern Industry
Age- group 1960 1970 1960 1970
Under 15 17 18 15 13
15-24 19 22 24 12
25-34 29 32 31 28
35-44 23 17 20 15
45 and over 12 11 10 12

Basic Theme
New themes to address the necessary changes in the target audience
As previous theme used by NML are now being associated with other
competitors in the market
What recommendations do you have regarding the
strategy issues raised at the end of the case?

Budget
Ad spend by NML is among the lowest in the market
The average budget on advertisement among the top insurance companies is
$2.2 bn approximately
Being among the market leader, NML should either match this or spend more
than Competitors like Prudential, New York Life

Methods of Evaluation
Traditionally used methods of evaluation are to be continued
With the emergence of spend on television ads, the method to evaluate the
effectiveness and scope for improvement should also be taken care.
How should the result of NMLs
advertising be appraised?
Traditionally, the companys advertisement had sought to develop a quality image,
trying to presell the name and value of the company
Research data
Received from Starch, used to compare Northwesterns ad with its competitors & its own
previous ad
Research results indicated that 10% of people have heard about the firm for the past couple
of years.
This awareness was higher among the readers of journals as well as men with income more
than $15,000.
Ad has impressed the limited viewers and the firm is perceived as one with good reputation as
it is interested in individuals and specific needs
The study also stressed upon the positive feeling the users possess towards the company and
its agents
Preffered brand - the customers who have served more than one brand has regarded NML as
the better brand.
How should the result of NMLs advertising be
appraised?
(cntd.)

Brand has made a good name for itself in the limited target segment
With the current brand reputation, NML should now focus on increasing the
market penetration and reach maximum number of customers in the different
target groups
The company should also be careful in popularizing the name of the firm as
the company is being referred by various names
This needs to be done in order to develop a uniqueness associated with the
company.