In the United States, Millennials are now the largest generation of the population, and soon it will be the same throughout the world.
The oldest of them are 30 and work, often have families, spend and have to deal with issues such as health, welfare, security, housing. The youngest of them are also called Generation Z (or Centennials), mostly young people who still study and live with their families. The common feature of Millennials and Centennials is their digital origin: smartphones are almost an extension of the body, the world is a global village; news, information, shopping, entertainment, choice of services, are mainly web-based.
Amazon’s shopping experience is the benchmark for this generation; they buy fewer homes than their forefathers, use more sustainable forms of mobility, travel low-cost and use Airbnb, love delivery services. They are perfectly comfortable in the service economy.
It is one of the great challenges facing the financial and insurance industry, which has struggled to get digital and understand that to gain this generation a new digital customer experience is necessary, as well as new products, better suited to a different lifestyle, meeting more flexible, customizable and less expensive needs.
The insurtech boom is based on these assumptions: adapting the insurance industry to a new generation of consumers by leveraging technology and startups.
In addition, open innovation also uses tools such as co-creation, a method capable of involving young Millennials very directly in the creation of new products.
This is what BNP Paribas Cardif recently managed to do on the occasion of the Milan Digital Week that, as part of the workshop “Digital impact on sustainable mobility”, organised a co-creation event, focused on the sustainable mobility topic, inviting 20 students from Università Cattolica to the 27th floor of the Diamond Tower where the Italian branch is located.
The aim of the workshop was twofold:
– Provide students with a first contact with the job market, making them also interact directly with BNP Paribas Cardif’s Research & Development structure.
– Let the Company benefit from new, innovative and, above all, original ideas in order to optimise a new product to be launched in 2018
The students involved were enrolled in the Master’s Degree course in Banking, Finance and Insurance, while another group was enrolled in the Cross-Curricular Master’s Degree course in Economics and Literature.
Simone Macelloni, Head of Marketing R&D at BNP Paribas Cardif: “Being close to young people today means roaring the wave of innovation and being able to satisfy new customer needs with an always up-to-date offer. That’s why BNP Paribas Cardif promotes relationships with university students: their “unspoiled” ideas and enthusiasm can stimulate change in Insurtech, helping to improve our lifestyle as well.”
The Company has already experienced co-creation events in the past, even its flagship product for the smart home, the Habit@t solution was partly the result of co-creation work carried out with teams of potential customers, bloggers, digital experts.
Co-creation was also the method chosen by the insurance company to improve its communication: it involved network professionals in a project aimed at “converting” the insurance language into the daily life language. An initiative aimed at improving the user experience through simpler and clearer relationships.
