When I worked on Aflac B2C the brief was “Duck hijinks + ‘Aflac pays cash if you get sick or injured’ aaaand GO!” Years later, my agency became Aflac’s B2B agency of record, and my partner and I were tasked with leading creative for three distinct but related audiences (brokers, agents, and business decision makers).
I stepped through the looking glass into a highly matrixed organization and answers — finally! — to a question that had plagued me since I was on the consumer side: if you can’t actually buy Aflac, why spend millions telling people to buy Aflac? I fell in love with the world that lies beneath the top of the funnel, stood up a previously nonexistent B2B marketing program for products that you can only buy if your employer offers them, and cemented my view that humanity and humor are even more important when talking to people who are “at work.”
We had to fight for it at first
As a brand new program, we had to show we could work smarter, more nimbly, and as part of Aflac’s existing marketing efforts.
To get B2B-specific messaging into market fast, we leveraged B2C broadcast talent to develop concepts that could work within the B2C team’s setups. We got our clients to trust us, and got better with each production—evolving from a few throwaway takes of our scripts captured by the B2C agency, to an on-set presence and place on the call sheet. Fun fact: An Aflac leader who shall remain nameless called “Aflac Wins” one of their favorite spots ever, because it gets right to the point of what Aflac does for policyholders.
:15 “Aflac Wins”
:15 “Know it Well”
:15 “On the Menu”
:30 “Wake Up”
:15 "Protector”
From nothing, came something special
Building a program from scratch meant giving all three audiences meaningful ways to learn from and engage with the brand right away.
So we got down to business producing animated explainer videos, broker profiles, case studies, trend reports, sales toolkits, paid media, organic social, and a content hub for multiple audiences and needs, which saw a 162% site traffic increase in the first 90 days after launch (not to mention a nearly four-minute average time-on-site, beating the average of just under a minute).
We achieved this with content on topics both valuable and unexpected, like how optimism bias impacts life insurance uptake, and the business benefits of death positivity.
Good work earns trust
Our team delivered again and again on work executed in partnership with Aflac’s internal studio, such as a recruitment campaign starring Daymond John and sales enablement content that empowered agents to have more effective conversations.
Make Your Mark Recruitment Campaign with Daymond John
Daymond John sewed the first 10 FUBU shirts in his mother’s living room before turning himself into an internationally-recognized brand. Aflac started with 60 agents and now has over 75,000 across the country. While it may seem unlikely at first, they were the perfect team to show prospective insurance agents that whatever their dreams for the future, Aflac could help them make their mark.
We developed a campaign concept, scripts, social, and landing pages for two kinds of agents (people selling insurance for the first time and seasoned agents ready to add Aflac to their portfolio), and planned a shoot in partnership with Aflac Studio for a lovely 115-degree July day in Las Vegas. And we dug deeper than asked, weaving Daymond and his encouragement throughout the application and certification process with a workbook to help new agents with goal-setting and creating a business plan, cobranded FUBU swag, and a signed first dollar.
And it worked, with a 2,000% increase in applicants and the highest ever engagement of any Aflac recruitment campaign.
Multicultural Research and Sales Enablement
Black, Hispanic, and Asian-American audiences are key to Aflac’s long-term growth strategy. The sales team needed some help feeling informed, confident, and successful in a consultative scenario. Of course we could help with that.
We started with a research report that pulled together the most trusted and up-to-date information on demographic, cultural, financial and health trends affecting our three main groups. Through this, we identified not only their greatest challenges, but which Aflac products might be able to help, such as Accident Insurance for the 50% of Hispanic Americans who work in blue-collar jobs.
We defined a campaign tonality that was direct, empathetic, and sensitive. Then we created training videos and infographics to encourage our agents to transcend their discomfort or hesitation, and open themselves up to learning about — and therefore helping — Black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans.
Our team originally pitched a joyful, community-oriented video treatment inspired by a title sequence filmed over Zoom during the pandemic. Although the final videos were executed in a more expected visual style, the supportive, understanding tone of our scripts still shines through.
Then came our swan song
In 2025, Aflac brought the B2B program in-house—but not before we completed a suite of product videos that did something that had eluded the brand for years: tastefully communicated complex and sensitive product benefits without abandoning their signature slapstick fowl.
The real feather in our cap? The sales force loved and embraced our videos as key sales tools.
(If you enjoyed those, there are about 15 more I can send you.)
