Copyright The Boston Globe
John Hancock is best known for its life insurance. So why is the Boston company investing in a video series that has nothing to do with selling insurance, at least not directly? The “Longer. Healthier. Better — Leaders in Longevity” series that Hancock launched last week is a set of short documentaries about the science of aging, not a bunch of insurance ads. However, a life insurance company with throngs of premium payers obviously has thousands of reasons why it wants people to live longer — if not millions. This documentary series is also part of a broader push under Hancock president Brooks Tingle’s direction to strengthen Boston’s claim as a “longevity hub,” a place where some of the best science to improve and extend the aging process takes place. Each of the six videos spends eight to 14 minutes focusing on a different doctor, scientist, or innovator and what they’re doing to enhance people’s lives as they age. The first two profiles, which began streaming last week on John Hancock’s website, are about Joe Coughlin, director of the MIT AgeLab, and Andrew Steele, a British scientist who has authored a book about the aging process. (The other local “star” in the series is Dariush Mozaffarian, director of Tufts University’s Food is Medicine Institute.) The videos were all created in-house, by members of Hancock’s marketing team, with footage shot over the past year, starting at the company’s second “Longer, Healthier, Better” symposium held in Boston a year ago. The remaining four videos will debut on Hancock’s website over the coming weeks, and the marketing staff, led by chief marketing officer Lindsay Hanson, is already thinking about season two. Advertisement “The idea came from us wanting to share our message, not only with [insurance] customers, but really with the entire population,” Hanson said. “When we say we care about people living longer, healthier, better lives, we truly mean it. We don’t just mean it for our customers.” This is an installment of our weekly Bold Types column about the movers and shakers on Boston’s business scene. Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.
