Merrill Lynch Resource Central

The Setup

The goal was an immersive experience that showed how Merrill Lynch sets the new standard for wealth management. Merrill’s “Life. It’s a totally different beast.” campaign gave us the emotional hook. Our job was to turn that idea into something advisors could actually step into, so the tools and sales processes they’re expected to know feel connected to real people and real moments in their clients’ lives.

Sparks Grove was brought in to drive education and awareness across Merrill’s full set of advisor tools and sales processes, and to do it in one visual experience. Advisors were dealing with a long list of products, from 529 plans and loan management accounts to hybrid life insurance, IRAs, cash management accounts and bond ladders. Each one came with its own materials, but nothing showed how they fit together for an actual client. The experience had to work on the floor at every sales conference, where an advisor might give it five minutes between sessions. It also had to help them understand each tool in the context of Merrill’s client segments and personas, not as a product catalog.

What I Led

At Sparks Grove, I led the creative and experience design. We built the experience around role play rather than a product list: advisors choose a client, and each client’s story unfolds as three short stops tied to a life priority, like Family, Work, Health or Home.

We designed the kiosk first, for large touchscreens and a standing, walk-up audience — big touch targets, a simple Home / This stop / Blueprint navigation, and an attract screen that pulls people in from across the room. From there we adapted the same system for desktop and mobile web, so the experience could live beyond the conference floor.

What We Delivered

Three client personas, drawn from Merrill’s segmentation work:

Ben, the Optimistic Builder: a screenwriter and new father working out how to save for his son while buying his first home.

Jerry, the Uneasy Retiree: a public employee with a pension, unsure how to make it last through a much longer retirement.

Bridget, the Relaxed Retiree: a widow taking over the family’s wealth for the first time and thinking about her health and legacy.

Each stop in a client’s story opens with a short film in the campaign’s voice (“Fatherhood. It’s a totally different beast.”). Next to the film sits a set of tools the advisor should bring to that conversation, along with conversation starters they can use with a client the very next day. Each story takes about six minutes, and advisors can switch clients at any point.

The Advisor Blueprint. The piece that ties it together: a map of every tool against every life priority, so advisors can see the whole system in one place and understand why a 529 plan comes up for Ben while Social Security and long-term care come up for Jerry. On the kiosk, a “send these tools to my phone” option lets advisors take the content with them after they walk away.

The experience shipped in three formats: the touchscreen kiosk, desktop web and mobile web.

Outcomes

We delivered the touchscreen experience to every advisor road show, where it became a centerpiece for introducing tools in context. Its reach then grew past the conferences: the experience was replicated on Merrill’s internal advisor-facing intranet sites, which gave advisors a place to discover new tool content on their own time. The experience shows advisors which tools matter and also how to use them in the context of a client’s life. That was the shift Merrill was after: from knowing the product to knowing the person.