AXA Equitable announced a new national advertising campaign aimed at
encouraging the approximately 77 million baby boomers in America to cease
ignoring the "800-pound gorilla" in the room when it comes to their retirement
planning.
The new national advertising campaign urges baby boomers to take action to
ensure their income needs in retirement are addressed. The TV and print ads
raise awareness of annuities as a valuable option that could guarantee income
for life. The campaign is part of a broader initiative aimed at helping boomers
prepare for retirement.
"The facts are clear: baby boomers know they need to address their retirement,
yet many feel unprepared and intimidated by the process — so they put it off
and put it off hoping that somehow the issue will simply go away," stated
Barbara Goodstein, executive vice president of marketing and product development,
AXA Equitable. "However, what boomers don’t realize is that they are in essence
ignoring an 800-pound gorilla that is sitting in the room with them every day of
their lives. The new AXA campaign will not only expose the 800-pound gorilla
boomers are ignoring, it will also give the gorilla his own voice and opinion to
help encourage boomers to face their retirement needs today!"
The campaign, created by Merkley + Partners, features an animatronic gorilla
that appeared in the major motion picture "Instinct" from Touchstone Pictures
(1999). The campaign will appear on national cable networks such as Bloomberg
Television, CNN and A&E, as well as major broadcast TV outlets in New York,
Chicago, Miami and Detroit. Print advertisements will be featured in The Wall
Street Journal, TIME Gold, SmartMoney, Architectural Digest and Golf Magazine,
among others, beginning in June issues and continuing throughout the fall of
2006.
"At AXA, we are committed to providing baby boomers with a holistic view of the
new retirement reality," said Christopher M. "Kip" Condron, chairman and chief
executive officer, AXA Equitable. "We feel strongly that individuals want to
make their own, informed financial decisions. As such, we are committed to
providing the objective insight and education consumers can trust, the tools and
advisory services that address an individual’s financial and lifestyle
retirement needs and a breadth of innovative products that help achieve
retirement goals."
AXA Equitable has launched several initiatives to provide baby boomers with
educational resources to support their financial decisions as they prepare for
retirement. The company is a charter sponsor of the Variable Annuities Knowledge
Center (http://www.variableannuityfacts.org/), an online resource aimed at
helping consumers to understand the facts surrounding variable annuities. The
Variable Annuities Knowledge Center is operated by a non-profit organization and
is overseen by an independent Advisory Board to help ensure that the resource
continues to provide current, fact-based information to the general public.
In addition, under a new partnership arrangement, The Wharton School of the
University of Pennsylvania, recognized worldwide for the academic strength of
its business education programs, has designed a program in retirement planning
specifically for AXA Equitable’s financial professionals. The customized
curriculum provides training and education on the broad needs of baby boomers
approaching retirement. As part of the program, AXA’s financial professionals
are trained on specific tools that give them and their clients a comprehensive
view of clients’ financial and lifestyle objectives for retirement and
methodology for charting their progress in planning for those goals.
About AXA Equitable
AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company is the principal life insurance subsidiary
of AXA Financial, Inc., providing life insurance, annuities and other
needs-based products and services for the financial services market, co-distributed
by AXA Advisors, LLC, and AXA Distributors, LLC. AXA Financial is one of the
premier U.S. organizations providing financial protection and wealth management,
and had approximately $643.4 billion in assets under management as of December
31, 2005. AXA Financial is a member of the global AXA Group, which had $1.3
trillion in assets under management as of December 31, 2005. All guarantees are
based on the claims-paying ability of AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company (AXA
Equitable).
All of the above text is a press release provided by the quoted organization.
globalagingtimes.com accepts no responsibility for their accuracy.