The WARC Podcast The Effective CMO: AIA's Stuart A. Spencer
Mar 24, 2026
Stuart A. Spencer, Group CMO at AIA who leads marketing across Asia and created the Rethink Healthy platform, discusses how to reshape health mindsets. He explores research on entrenched Asian health stereotypes. He explains creative that provokes reflection, films reframing vulnerability as strength, and how incentive programs and measurement drive real behavior change.
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Insurance Must Shape Health Behaviors
- AIA sees its role as actively shaping health behaviors because population health directly affects longevity, mortality, morbidity and the company's economics.
- Stuart A. Spencer framed Rethink Healthy as a public mission to engage a billion people beyond AIA's 40 million customers to reduce lifestyle disease across Asia.
Perfect Health Imagery Causes Inertia
- Perfectionist imagery on social media creates intimidation and inertia, making healthy change feel inaccessible for many people.
- Rethink Healthy reframes health as inclusive and achievable to unstick people from paralysis and prompt initial steps.
Perfect Son Shows Vulnerability As Strength
- Stuart described the short film Perfect Son showing a high-achieving man hiding stress and then opening up to his father, using a cracked vase as a metaphor.
- The film ends with vulnerability reframed as strength rather than shame to challenge 'suffer in silence' norms.