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I constantly hear the debate on how important pension engagement is, or isn’t, in a world of default solutions where people are doubly defaulted into their workplace scheme contribution level, and investment strategy.
I hear the challenge that you just can’t get people to engage in pensions because they just aren’t interested enough.
At the same time, I read this year’s Scottish Widows Retirement Report findings that 39% (almost 4 in ten) of people are not even on track for a minimum level of retirement income set out by the PLSA. So, it’s clear we need to do more to connect with people about their pension savings and there is no doubt that tech is opening up new avenues to personalise communications like never before.
Personalised video grows engagement
The ability to produce personalised video content for employer clients and for scheme members has moved on massively in the past few years, delivering personalised content with nudging capabilities.
There’s the use of AI to quickly turn text into avatar films which creates huge potential to both speed up the process and push down the cost of creating memorable, personalised films for schemes or events.
Employers can choose avatars that are suitable for their workforce, with a tone that conveys the messaging, and multiple languages to include everybody in the workforce. Their quality has vastly improved with ultra-expressive versions that look brilliant too.
Some say it’s almost as easy as making a PowerPoint slide deck and while we don’t think about it like that yet, we know that more and more people are consuming videos on the go and these scheme-level avatar films are a great way of sharing pension messages quickly and easily.
On-demand video benefit statements
Around for a while now, Video Benefit Statements (VBS) have improved with on-demand personalisation. The latest technology generates a video at the point when it’s needed, telling the pension saver what they have now and giving them a projection of what they might have at retirement, with personalised, actionable nudges to help them manage their pension savings.
Let’s say the nudge is to update a nominated beneficiary and then the pension saver goes ahead and completes this transaction on the app or desktop. When they run the film again, their newly generated film knows that their beneficiaries are up to date and moves on to give them a different nudge.
Real time, on-demand videos like this elevate the pension engagement story.
Gamification
Scottish Widows’ Pension Mirror continues to be a trailblazer in bringing gamification to pensions as it closes in on one million* uses since launch. Audiences seem to really enjoy using the pension mirror – and the practical upsides have been phenomenal as we have seen a rapid increase in app registrations, which means more people are engaging with their pension, and is the best news of all.
The pension mirror got a big boost in late 2024 when we turned this into a live experience for people. We got a full, body-sized mirror and equipped it with the technology to bring the pension mirror experience to life. First port of call was London’s Waterloo train station (below) where commuters queued up to have a go and get their own photo of their reaction to what age the mirror thought they were. Many had priceless reactions that we caught on film, and it made pensions so much more engaging. Every one of them walked away knowing a bit more about pensions, some went on to track down lost pots, and download their pension app.
Over the course of 13 hours, the mirror was used on average once every one minute and 50 seconds, and more than 400 times in total. We’ve now started taking that kit to big employer clients to help engage their people with their pensions – gamifying pensions in a fun way.
We are serious about gamifying pensions – or applying gamification techniques to pensions. Animations for tax year-end, compound interest games, save and invest learning experiences, and even one that cracks your phone screen. It’s about making this learning fun.
Pension engagement – but not as we know it
But beyond the fun element, gamification techniques help people understand what they can do, and how they can do it.
But it’s also about what you can do fast, and I had the good fortune to join our gaming team in Dundee at a ‘Game Jam’ earlier this year. It was all about getting gaming teams, university students, coders and some of the big hitters from the legendary gaming company, Rockstar, and other leaders in the world of gaming and giving them a bunch of real-life personal finance challenges to solve.
Give the teams one problem each. Give them 48 hours to produce a prototype of a game that helped with the challenge. By the end of those 48 hours, I could scan the QR code to play the game that had been developed. This isn’t pension comms as any of us know it, until now.
Making pensions more fun
It’s one part of the future. Pension engagement is changing, and we’re planning a whirlwind of games, bite-sized learning and, yes, making pensions more fun to find out about.
Of course, defaults are important – they get people started on a savings journey.
But we need people to engage with their pension, understand what the default outcome looks like for them and encourage them to take control of their own retirement destiny.
Let’s do that in a way that doesn’t bore them, but makes them want to engage.
*Pension Mirror: 844,522 total uses, as of June 2025, since launch.
Read the latest news, expertise and thought leadership from Scottish Widows’ workplace pensions experts here.
