Love Island influencers have their place in promoting the protection industry but only if they are “authentic” and can ask open-ended questions aimed at educating the wider population.
This was according to panellists participating in Protection Review’s ProtectZ conference in Moorgate in London yesterday.
Back in February, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) revealed social media accounts of regulated people and unregulated influencers were an area of “growing concern” as it has sanctioned “several” social media personalities over the past year.
But in April the regulator itself along with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), turned to ITV’s hit show’s Love Island‘s Sharon Gaffka to warn social media influencers about the risks of promoting financial scams.
Making people financially aware
When asked by Health & Protection at yesterday’s event how influencers such as Love Island contestants can successfully be deployed to promote protection insurance, Nina Brown, protection specialist at Pam Brown Mortgages, told delegates these individuals would need to talk about protection as a whole and not just as insurers.
She added they should also ensure “people are financially aware of their whole circumstances and how they can actually protect themselves”.
Selling solutions rather than a product
Aimee Saville, senior protection adviser at Future Proof, agreed, adding these promotions need to demonstrate what protection can do, not just what it is.
“You need to support your family,” she continued. “You don’t need to support your family with this one thing but it’s about opening up their thinking process – not specifically you need this because it fixes all your problems.
“It’s these are your problems – what will you do? We just need loads of Love Island people to just sit there and ask loads of open-ended questions, get everyone thinking and then we’d all be really happy.
“But product shouldn’t ever be mentioned at that point. Obviously they do because they want people to enquire.
“We all know why it happens. But if it could just be – speak about this, think about this, come speak to us about it. That would be much better,” she said.
For Hanna McKallip, protection adviser at Premier Plus, these promotions should be about selling a solution rather than a product.
“It’s funnelling into something where that person might have other need. But they may think ‘that will do what I think it will do’, but ultimately we know that it’s not always the case,’ she said.
Are they authentic?
Hazel Johnston, strategic account manager at Legal & General, also pointed out that individuals who promote protection products need to be “authentic”.
“Just because somebody has got celebrity status, it doesn’t mean that they’ve got convictions that actually link to that. For me, it has to be linking back – do they personally have it? Why did they personally take it out? And asking questions like that. And if they don’t, do they have a family member who has experience of that. For me, as a provider, that’s what I would always be looking for.”
Johnston added L&G has not used influencers at all as yet, but the subject remains in discussion.
“That is what we would be looking for,” she continued. “Somebody who is authentic and genuine. And we’re not just giving them a script – they actually have a story that they can convey in a real way. Otherwise it’s disingenuous,” she said.