Research Spotlight: Aon Hewitt Uses Interactive Video to Create Innovative Consumer Experiences

Aon Hewitt’s Consumer Experience practice partnered with aleading interactive video provider to create solutions for the company’sclients to better educate and communicate with their employees on health careplans, well-being programs, and retirement options.

Given today’s information environment and the deluge of complex,confusing information about insurance and health care, Aon Hewitt clients facea number of major challenges when communicating with their employees. Thesechallenges often occur at both the national level and the individual-employeelevel, and they involve the difficulty of improving health literacy for olderadults and other members of society.

The criticalimportance of health literacy

Understanding health and health care information is a dauntingnational challenge in the United States. The implementation of the AffordableCare Act (“Obamacare”) has added more complexity to the nation’s health careinformation, and it has increased the business challenge for employers who wantto ensure that their employees fully understand basic health issues andcoverage information.

At the individual or companylevel, it is common for many employers to have a wealth of printed or onlinedocuments available to employees that explain benefit details, company HRpolicies, or health insurance information. Often, that information is eitherdifficult to find or hard to understand. This leads employees to either getstuck and do nothing or call the human resources group for help. Data from AonHewitt’s 2015 Consumer Health Mindset Study had previously revealed that most employees still do not feelconfident in their decision-making about health care and employee benefits. AonHewitt’s experience shows that employees are “hungryfor resources and guidance that are simple, accessible, and relevant.”

In addition to the informationoverload challenge, Aon Hewitt clients often deal with the issue of employeedisinterest or lack of follow-through, even when employees already know theservices available to them and how to access said services. The disappointingparticipation rates for employer wellness programs are a prime example of thischallenge. As David Westfall, senior director of decision support andinnovation in Aon Hewitt’s Consumer Experience practice, explains it, theprimary people challenge with these types of employer-provided benefitsprograms is “capturing the attention of a human being. If [that human being] isnot interested in what I’m trying to say, then everything else—all the other‘background stuff’— doesn’t matter.”

Confronting the informationdeluge

Faced with these business andpeople challenges—complexity of benefits, bombardment with too muchinformation, policy- and program-specific differences from one company toanother, as well as lack of individual commitment, engagement, or topicliteracy—Westfall and his team focused on a basic question: “How do employeesbest interact with this information?”

The simple answer is that humanbeings interact best within the context of a story and communicate best whentelling or listening to interesting stories. This is hardly surprising; overthe millennia, storytelling is the primary means that we, as human beings, haveused to communicate.

The Aon Hewitt team usedinteractive video as a powerful medium for storytelling. As Westfall notes, theteam had traditionally loaded all sorts of data onto a website. Now, they useinteractive video to take all of that digital information and turn it into acompelling and entertaining story: “[We wanted to create an] interesting storythat you are willing to devote attention to, to capture [your] attention andcuriosity, and present a compelling story as to why [you should be] interestedand where you can go to get more information,” he says. Although linear videois already used to provide health care and insurance information, interactivevideo is unique in that the viewer can choose the story line thestoryteller is going to tell, rather than being “talked at” by the videopresenter in a one-way information dump.

Let’s pause for a moment and briefly review the differencesbetween traditional video and interactive video. These will help explain whyWestfall and his team chose interactive video for their storytelling solution.

Interactive video

Interactive video, in earlier formats, has actually been aroundfor a long time.Interactive video mergesstorytelling with the interactivity of the web to create a personalized,immersive, user-driven experience. Anthony Mullenof Forrester Research writesthat, broadly speaking, there are three approaches to video:

• Linear static video. Avideo with pre-rendered content that simply plays from beginning to end.
• Linear dynamic video. Avideo in which “content is customized per user or segment, often at run time,”Mullen writes. “This approach interacts with consumers’ data (e.g., socialprofile information) and/or context (e.g., location) but does not allow usersto directly interact with the material when playing.”

As Paul Clothierhas also written,linear videos are useful for learning, but they are passive. While these typesof video may be interesting and engaging to a certain degree, the viewer or learnerdoes not participate or interact.

• Interactive video. Adigital video that supports a rich variety of “user interaction through gestures,voice, touch, and clicks,” Mullen writes.Using this type of video, “interactiveelements are surfaced to users through hotspots associated with items in thevideo or timeline triggers, or are continually visible as an overlay to thevideo.” Interactive video users “can interact inside the video itself, fromfilling out forms to taking interactive tutorials, playing game-likeexperiences, or viewing nonlinear jump cuts to new video material. Interactivevideo can also include dynamic elements.”

Guided experience

Aon Hewitt’s Guided Experience isan interactive user-controlled experience around a subject of interest. Usersare introduced to the topic and, from there, are able to click through a listof video sub-topics (Figure 1) to find out more information about theirspecific questions, such as: “I want to improve my health. What does myemployer offer to help me?”

Figure 1: Explaining how the user can explore educational topics ofspecific interest 

After viewing the selected videotopic, users are given links within the video to outside tools that help withadditional decision-making, such as the Aon Hewitt Decision Direct preferencemodeling tool (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Explaininghow to use the preference modeling tool (Aon Hewitt Decision Direct) to modelmedical coverage preferences

Westfall described the keybenefits of the Aon Hewitt Guided Experience as follows:

• Ease of use. By allowing the user to navigatetopics more naturally and with a human-like experience, Aon Hewitt puts theuser in control of the experience.
• Authenticity and control. Unlike websites or other forms of communication, the solutionpresents users with a real, interactive person. It puts them in control of theinformation they want to learn more about, and it does so in a human,interactive, and intuitive way.
• Personal and relevant. The solution uses the latest trends in visualcommunication, content marketing, and content distribution technology, such ashyper-personalization, whiteboard animation, and hyperlocal marketing.

Journey mapping

One of the processes used tocreate a better understanding of a process or opportunity is journey mapping.Using this process, the Aon Hewitt team looks at information and communicationsrequirements “through the eyes of the target audience—an employee and/or spouse‘persona’—and then plots out the path and experience of that persona as theyinteract with critical communication ‘touch-points.’ … [In other words,] whatyou want employees to know, feel, and do, and the messages and media you thinkwill best get their attention and action,” Westfall explains. “This is just oneapproach we may utilize. Regardless of process, our approach is to firstunderstand the ‘who’ and the ‘why,’ then we can figure out the ‘what’ and‘how.’”

Video navigation

AonHewitt partnered with a leading interactive video provider who provided thecloud-based creative tool used to build the interactive video interface. Thisvideo interface navigated and branched throughout Aon Hewitt’s extensive videolibrary in order to create flexible and personalized learning paths thatsatisfied the storytelling required by each viewer/learner.

TheAon Hewitt team views its entire interactive video platform as a holisticconsumer experience rather than a technology platform or set of videotools. As described above, Aon Hewitt’s Guided Experience comprises severalelements that, together, make up the holistic experience. These include:

• A microsite (Figure 3) that aggregates individual piecesof information and provides guideposts to the experience, as well as access toother information or content

Figure 3: Consumer experiencemicrosite

• A library ofinteractive videos that comprise the information resources that supportcreation of individual storytelling paths
• “High-impact”email communications that alert employees to the information and drive viewersto additional sources of information, such as a microsite or video experience

Download the case study for additional details and examples of how Aon Hewittprovides a rich consumer experience. In particular, check out the Resourcessection for links to additional downloadable materials.

Results

Althoughthe Aon Hewitt interactive video learning initiative has been highlysuccessful, Westfall warns that interactive video by itself can besuccessful only “when used correctly and appropriately—often inconjunction with other solutions that, in aggregate, create a full consumerexperience.”

Hegoes on to state, “Sometimes video is not the right answer. [When used to]communicate a story, engage and develop interest, [interactive video can be a]powerful medium. [When interactive video is combined] into a consumerexperience approach [and used to leverage] different tools and channels into aholistic experience, it becomes even more powerful.”

Lessons learned

Westfall summarized the key lessons that heand his team gained from this experience:

• Think outside the box—Part 1. When thinking about interactive video forlearning or communications, think outside the standard training box. Forexample, the Aon Hewitt team did not think in terms of courses orcurricula. Rather, they looked at the communication challenge holistically—inother words, using tools such as journey or experience mapping—and morespecifically asked: “why,” “what,” and “how” can we encourage action on thepart of this individual human being?
• Think outside the box—Part 2. Furthermore, the Aon Hewitt team members didnot think of themselves as “formal” educators who used instructional designtools or criteria. As a result, they did not get sidetracked with instructionaldesign challenges or authoring-tool obstacles. As described earlier, the AonHewitt interactive video approach is more about the consumer experience,content marketing, brand journalism, and taking a holistic view of learner, viewer,or client engagement, rather than instructional design models.
• Be creative in using humor and unexpectedactions. Theteam learned that when videos are done correctly and creatively, people willactually watch good videos over and over again. For example, the AonHewitt team introduced elements of humor such as “Easter eggs” or visual pranksinto their informational videos. The pranks included having the actor simply“walk off the screen” to create surprise and laughter (Figure 4). When thishappened, it turned out that viewers enjoyed the video experience even more. Infact, participants began waiting for the actor to do something funnybecause it surprised and entertained them with some unexpected action (Figure 5).As Westfall noted, using this creative approach made the video even more “real,human, and funny.”

Figure 4: Example of an“Easter egg” moment (actress sneaks off page and returns wondering if you sawher leave)

Figure 5: Example of an“Easter egg” moment (actor takes a selfie)

Looking ahead

Aon Hewitt will move forward to enhance theinteractive video Guided Experience that it provides to its clients. In termsof specific enhancements and plans for innovative video applications:

• Aon Hewitt’s interactive videos will becomeeven more holistic and individualized, to the point where consumers and learnerswill be able to navigate through video and websites in the same fashion.
• The Aon Hewitt interactive experience will beless about facts and figures and more about telling a story around thefacts and figures.
• The Aon Hewitt Guided Experience willcontinue to be presented in such a way that human beings can understandimportant health care information both intellectually and emotionally. Inshort, Aon Hewitt’s goal is to engage with both the client’s intellect andemotions in order to produce “true engagement,” and to holistically embrace theentire information and learning experience—in essence, the consumer experienceoverall.

In addition to this broader vision, AonHewitt has published a number of predictions that describe the company’sperspective on future use of interactive video within areas of employeebenefits information and health information literacy. See the case study for adetailed list of these interactive video predictions (and much more).

Conclusion

Aon Hewitt’s holistic approach to interactive video is builtupon a mindset that encourages innovative thinking and focuses on empoweringthe individual human being to traverse a personalized path toward confidence,competency, and (in this case) health care information literacy.

As we have seen in this case study, the Aon Hewitt team is usingthe power and reach of interactive video to help consumers comprehend andassimilate the current deluge of health care information, ask questions, steerthe conversation, make decisions, and then take action. They are doing thiswithin an innovative conceptual framework that keeps the focus on individuals,storytelling, and a rewarding and pleasant consumer experience.

Westfall encapsulated the holistic mindset by saying: “[Thevideo] isn’t about talking at me; it’s about an experience that makes mefeel as though it’s talking with me.”

References

AonHewitt.“Aon Consumer Experience Microsite.”
https://www.aonhewittconsumerexperience.com/

AonHewitt.“Are your employees listening? (Really listening?)”
https://www.aonhewittconsumerexperience.com/innovation/innovation08.html

Aon Hewitt. ConsumerHealth Mindset Study: From Passive Patient to Confident Consumer. Aon Hewitt and the National BusinessGroup on Health, 2015.
https://www.aon.com/human-capital-consulting/thought-leadership/health/2015-consumer-healthmindset.jsp?utm_source=aoncom&utm_medium=aonhewittbanner&utm_campaign=2015-chm

Clothier, Paul. “Interactive Video: The Next BigThing in Mobile.” Learning SolutionsMagazine. 28 October 2013.
https://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/1292/

Clothier, Paul. “Training Goes Hollywood: Moviesand Interactive Narrative in Soft-Skills Training.” Learning Solutions Magazine. 24 February 2003.
https://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/363/

Mullen,Anthony. “Move Beyond Awareness With Interactive Video.”Forrester Research. 1 November 2013.
https://blogs.forrester.com/anthony_mullen/13-11-01-move_beyond_awareness_with_interactive_video