Scottish Widows Launches Industry First Tool to Highlight Gender Pension Gap

In the lead up to International Women’s Day, insurance and pensions provider, Scottish Widows has launched a first of its kind digital tool which combines data from their annual Women & Retirement Report overlayed with ONS data on average incomes and working patterns, to help raise awareness and understanding of the gender pension gap. The new tool - Beat the Gap - created by adam&eveDDB, with data modelling by Frontier Economics, underpins a wider International Women’s Day campaign, with media planning and buying handled by Zenith UK. The campaign marks Scottish Widow’s 5th IWD partnership and represents their long standing commitment to improving financial outcomes for women. 

Despite being more than double the size of the gender pay gap, very few people are aware of the gender pension gap or the unintended consequences that life events and choices can have on women’s financial futures. Scottish Widows’ latest data shows that the gap between the average woman’s and man’s pension grows from £100 to almost £100,000 between the ages of 22 and 65.

In light of this, the Beat the Gap tool and supporting campaign is designed to make more women see how they are personally affected by this hidden inequality, highlighting how the gap will unfold over the course of their own working lives. Based on a few simple life questions, the tool reveals the size of pension gap individual users will likely experience alongside the moments where their outcomes differ from men (such as having children). By offering tailored tips on how to navigate these challenges the tool aims to help women get ahead in a pension system more suited to men.

Alongside the tool, the wider campaign sees Scottish Widows launch a TikTok takeover to drive impact and awareness to a younger audience. Women (and men) in their 20’s and 30’s have the best chance to avoid falling into the gender pension gap and this campaign is all about making it personal and relevant, at the time when we can have the biggest impact. The social media platform is their trusted source of information, and the takeover aims to help more young women, in particular, feel better informed about the future financial risks they face. TikTok content creators such as Patricia Bright, Emma Stephenson (and her partner Ryan) and Coco Sarel demonstrate how to use the pension gap tool and learn how their individual experience affects their pension pot. Impactful OOH has been tactically placed at high-dwell sites to give audiences time to process the message and (re)act, driving action from women and male allies and traffic to beatthegap.com. A meaningful sponsorship across the Independent also offers the opportunity to champion women’s voices this International Women’s Day.

The Beat the Gap campaign launched on the 4th of March and will culminate on International Women’s Day (IWD) on the 8th March. 

Lindsay Montgomery, head of marketing at Scottish Widows said, “Scottish Widows has a longstanding commitment to helping women plan for a secure financial future. Highlighting the gender pension gap and giving women the information they need to avoid it is at the core of this 2024 IWD campaign. Our new Beat The Gap tool shows when and how the gap emerges and offers personalised tips designed to improve women’s outcomes in retirement – from saving more in their 20’s through to talking about pensions in divorce.”

Sarah Morning, planning director at adam&eveDB said, “So much evidence shows that life events impact women’s financial futures more significantly than men’s and yet most financial services communications are of the one-size-fits-all variety. It’s vital that women – and in particular younger women – are made aware of the risks and pitfalls they face and what they can do ahead of time to lessen those risks.”

Anna Mere, planning director, Zenith UK said, “We're really excited for this iteration of the IWD campaign, with the powerful message directed at the younger generation this year. It marks a shift in focus for us, both with a different target audience as well as aiming to provide actionable insights with the Beat the Gap tool. We've done some brilliant work together to really understand where the gender pension gap starts to widen, and how we approach the new challenges, and can't wait for others to see the data and take action themselves too.”