Great navigation and friendly usability

In New Zealand, one in every nine adults is an AMP customer. The AMP name has been in kiwi homes for over 150 years, helping people find financial security through investment, superannuation, insurance and financial planning. But far from selling products, AMP sells relationships. The launch of AMP's Life Stages branding campaign was a recent major initiative - with a new TVC loved by customers and supported by traditional marketing avenues. There was no presence on AMP's website, so this opportunity to translate the essence of the campaign into an online world dovetailed perfectly with a pressing need to enhance the whole navigation of a site that hadn't been refreshed for several years.

Great navigation thinks from the customer's perspective

In setting the brief, AMP Marketing and Communications Manager, Henry Popplewell, summed up the existing navigation as clean, but lacking impetus or involvement. “Our website was based around product silos rather than customer needs and life stages, and while the information was there, it wasn't engaging. I had a firm view of what I wanted, but Intergen impressed by the way they listened, went away and applied their knowledge and came back and said 'Great, but hey, we can make it even better - here's some creative that's clever for the right reasons and highly functional."

Creativity that fits the breif

For Sam Allen, Intergen’s project design director, it was an opportunity to dive into new industry leading technology. "There are a lot of options out there for how to create and deliver a solution. The biggest challenge is to make sure that everyone, no matter what plug-ins, browsers, or computers they are using, can interact with what you build. We combined Flash, and the newer Javascript libraries to ensure no matter what someone visited the site with, they would get a consistent, highly engaging experience."

Creativity meets usability

Go to www.amp.co.nz and you'll be hit with upbeat music and imagery from AMP's Life Stages TV campaign. Photo images fly in, questions are posed …. Getting Started? On the home straight?

The feedback is all good, with AMP's Adviser network of over 250 impressed with what they're hearing from customers. "Punchy." "Lots of great information." "Exciting but simple." And the comment Popplewell most enjoyed from a business colleague in an unrelated field:"It's great to see a financial services company adopt such a customer focus, and the result is right on the mark, given that online is not the most tactile medium in the world."

On time and on budget

"Very seldom have I seen a company involved in the IT industry deliver what was promised at the price they said they would. It was so refreshing to get an honest quote to start with - and a result that was on time and to budget."

Usability testing holds high value

Intergen proposed Usability Testing to ensure website users understood the concepts, imagery, language and things they were seeing. Popplewell comments: "As a marketer, no matter how great you think your vision is, it's always coming from your perspective and it's the customer's perspective that counts. The cost of getting it wrong is a mistake you can't risk."

AMP's brand promise of financial security through life has now come to life on a website that's interactive and informative and delivers more value for AMP as a highly customer focused vehicle.