MetLife — Global Customer Experience and Photography

Translating complex global consumer segments into a library of stories.

Agency: SID LEE
Role: Lead Creative Strategist

Ask

After breaking up with Snoopy and the Peanuts gang, MetLife asked us to create a range of human-centered photography to support its “Navigating Life Together” brand platform around the world.

Strategic Approach

It’s without question that the financial services category is fraught with stocky, laughable photography. Rather than create another generic bank of images, we set out to create a library of human stories that are centered around life’s transitionary moments where MetLife helps us navigate life’s twists and turns. Each moment was anchored around consumer insights from thousands of policyholders around the world coupled with product/service benefits, with photo usage applications across North America, LATAM, EMEA, and APAC regions. Some of these key moments we sought to capture include: (1) welcoming a new addition; (2) up/downsizing; (3) becoming an empty nester; (4) embarking on your second act; (5) adventuring into the unknown; (6) coming of age in the digital age; and more.

Creative Solution

Working with such renowned photographers as Jo Metson Scott and Ellie Smith, we brought to life little slivers of life across key markets - from a middle class family’s morning rush in the USA to settling into a second in Japan - through the power of reportage-style photography. Each photo bridges real humans to the products/services MetLife offers (e.g. Life, AD&D, etc.), underpinning such universal needs as togetherness, safety, and security needed to navigate real life.

Results

We produced over 650 photos for a range of products/services for global and local market use-cases, with applications that span from MetLife’s regional dot.coms and group employee benefit brochures to social media channels.