Recently, I’ve been taking an online course on Financial Markets with Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller. During the course, Shiller shared an insightful study by Viviana Zelizer on how life insurance was marketed in the 19th century. I found a valuable marketing lesson in her research and decided to share it.
Before we dive into the study, let’s briefly introduce Viviana Zelizer.
Born on January 19, 1946, in Argentina, Zelizer is an economic sociologist known for studying how cultural and moral values influence the economy. She is also a professor of sociology at Princeton University. If you’d like to learn more about her, you can check her profile on Wikipedia.
Back to the study.
In the 19th century, life insurance policies were mainly designed to benefit women, as men, who were typically the breadwinners, often died at a young age, leaving their wives financially vulnerable. You’d expect that many women would have rushed to take out policies on their husbands, but that wasn’t the case.
Most women refused to buy life insurance, even after insurers explained the risks of losing their husbands unexpectedly and how insurance could provide financial security. This puzzled insurers – why would women reject something designed to protect them?
Zelizer’s study partly attributes this reluctance to religious beliefs. Many of these women were devout Christians who saw insurance as a challenge to their faith in God. They believed that taking out a policy on their husbands was like betting on their deaths, which could provoke divine punishment.
One woman explained her hesitation, saying:
“This insurance policy makes it seem like I’m betting that my husband will die. That might invite God’s wrath. I should stay away from that because it feels like I’m challenging God to take my husband, and I don’t want to do that.”
It became clear to insurers that their traditional sales pitch, focused on logic, statistics, and financial security, wasn’t working. So, they had to change their approach. And here’s the key lesson.
Instead of explaining the technicalities of insurance or probability theory, they reframed their pitch in a way that connected with women emotionally.
Rather than saying, “Insurance will protect you financially,” they told wives:
“I have a mission – to help your husband continue protecting you, even after he’s gone. If something terrible were to happen to him, you know he would love and care for you if he could. I’m here to make that possible.”
This emotional appeal worked. Women who had initially resisted life insurance began to see it as an act of love rather than a financial transaction.
The Takeaway for Marketers
The key lesson here is the importance of being customer-centric and finding ways to connect emotionally with your audience.
Too often, businesses develop innovative products or services that solve real problems but struggle to sell them because they focus too much on how the product works instead of why it matters to the customer.
A customer-centric approach, such as design thinking, helps businesses put the customer’s needs first at every stage, from product development to marketing and communication. Instead of overwhelming potential customers with technical details, focus on the value and emotional connection that will drive success.
So, next time you’re crafting a marketing message, ask yourself: Am I explaining how my product works, or am I showing why it matters to my customer?
