To help make retirement plans easier to understand and more accessible for small businesses to offer their employees, Principal tasked us with creating a series of explainer videos for its new Simply Retirement website.
Visualizing complex concepts for an audience that's unfamiliar with a topic, like retirement plans, can make it easier for them to understand and retain the information. That’s where animation has the advantage — it allows us to make complex concepts more concise and easier to grasp.
While our friends at Shift were knee deep in the development of the Simply Retirement website, we worked in parallel to develop a series of animated videos that would live on the site and walk small business owners through the 401(k) plan basics.
From touring the Simply Retirement dashboard and discussing plan pricing to explaining the Safe Harbor 401(k) retirement plan to small businesses and the retirement options available to their employees, each video in the series was designed to educate and inform without overwhelming the audience.
We created scripts that aligned with Principal’s already established brand voice while offering a clear, conversational and relatable message, free of unnecessary industry jargon. We used animations and illustrations to get right down to the "numbers” and clearly explain how the different plans benefit employees. We also carefully selected stock photography, bold overlays and icons, and kinetic typography to create a video style that felt trustworthy, industry-leading and in-line with the Principal brand.
Throughout the production process, we had established checkpoints that allowed us to collaborate with Principal each step of the way. This ensured we were delivering a product that represented the brand and met the needs of small business owners looking for the best retirement plan option for their employees.
Building upon the already outstanding work from our friends at Shift, the Simply Retirement video series helped simplify the complexities of selecting retirement plans — making it more achievable for small businesses.
