An online cartoon is changing the way employees think about voluntary benefits.
Trustnode, an online interactive benefits education and enrollment platform, said yesterday that their “The Potters and Friends” cartoon has increased employee participation rates in enrollment by five times.
The guinea pig, a California Employee Union, had 600 people last year participate. This year, there were over 3,000.
“The science behind the cartoon modality is the closest mapping to our mind-science than anything,” Dunn said. “There is now a wealth of information unleashed which has created an information overload.”
Dunn says this is linked to a proliferation of cartoons for adults; the mind wants simplicity.
“As we start talking about the science behind it, it’s not just a cartoon; it’s helping people more quickly assimilate information,” Dunn said. “The products we sell are anxiety-producing. The industry has been competing with consumers’ interest in researching the iPad, it’s much cooler and fun. The response has been to throw more people at it or morbid videos of a real-life person who had a loved one die. It further exacerbates our anxiety. Enter the cartoon, it absolutely relieves the anxiety.”
According to a representative, a multi-line insurance carrier required an efficient means of adequately communicating with the union’s diverse and widely-distributed membership. Trustnode’s online, interactive platform, which enables 24/7 access from any location, went over voluntary life insurance benefit (for member, spouse and dependents) and a long-term disability insurance benefit (for members only).
“They’d tried one-on-one enrollment, but they didn’t get the participation they expected and were alienating a lot of their members because of a sort of hard approach that the enrollers would use,” Dunn says. “Cartoon data visualization helps people leverage their perceptional abilities, to quickly analyze complex things. All of the science floating around has been brought to the employee benefits, insurance and health care realm in order to provide broad access to this information.”
