Online After Lunch Taskforce Meeting: Data Driven Stories and Pension Communication

In light of current pension reforms driven by a rise in life expectancy, aging populations and changing labour markets (Merton, 2014), communication about those reforms and communication to get people activated is crucial. In the Netherlands, the current reform can have severe consequences for various stakeholders, and communicating efficiently via existing communication channels is one of the biggest challenges for the pension sector (Prast et al., 2012). Written communication (such as the yearly pension overview sent by post or email) is often not read or understood by many people (Montae, 2012; Elling & Lentz, 2018; Pander Maat & Lentz, 2013) – possibly because this type of communication is made up of letters and numbers, which is especially unappealing to the eyes of generations that are used to visual communication.

Our brain is faster in processing visual information and we are also better in remembering information transferred in visuals as opposed to text (Potter et al., 2014). Besides this, the content structure of information could be improved by making use of storytelling (Sax, 2006). In this paper, we summarize literature from the field of marketing, behavioral economics, and
human data interaction on the effects of visuals and storytelling; showcase an application of visualization/data driven storytelling in the pension communication field; and develop some implications for managers and scientists wanting to work on visualizations and storytelling.