2016 Gold Financial Services

Agency Adam & Eve and Zenith Optimedia

Client Aviva UK

Campaign summary We’re not going to sell car insurance anymore - we’re going to make British roads safer

Campaign overview

In contrast to Aviva’s longstanding heritage, a focus on short-term value messaging threatened the bottom line.

To safeguard its future, Aviva needed to radically change its approach and deliver long-term profitability.

Strategy

Financial Services is a category that excites few.

For Aviva this was particularly true. It’s known primarily for car insurance, the most transactional and least emotive product in the insurance market.

Reflecting that lack of emotion, branded insurers like Aviva and their Price Comparison Website (PCW) competitors have created brand icons like nodding dogs or fat opera singers who fight tooth and nail for saliency in living rooms across the country. Indeed, with some success.

But a storm was brewing. To compete in a spiraling race to the bottom, driven by the PCWs, messages had become short-termist and value-led.

It was time for change. Time for Aviva to define a new role in the category, a higher social purpose distinct from the cheap brand icons of competitors, lasting and emotionally led, rather than short-term and value focused.

Creativity

One such social purpose was particularly apt for a car insurer.

2014 saw 195,000 road accident injuries on British roads. Aviva challenged themselves to change that statistic. Rather than just sell car insurance, Aviva was going to make roads safer.

The Aviva Drive app let customers track the efficiency and safety of their driving via the GPS capabilities of their smartphone.

Aviva realised the Drive app rewarded safer driving. It also let people know just how safe their driving is. In December 2015 Aviva launched the Drive Safer challenge.

It challenged Britain drivers to drive more safely, and attempt to answer the age old question: who were Britain’s safest drivers? Young or Old? North or South? Men or Women? Me or my neighbour?

Results

The campaign aims were to: drive greater saliency of Aviva car insurance, drive downloads of the Drive app, drive an uplift in car insurance quotes, drive an increase in sales.

By purposely rejecting category convention and a value-led race to the bottom, Aviva successfully elevated its brand to stand for a higher social purpose.

It created emotional connections with consumers and in doing so increased sales in the short-term and safeguarded the health of its brand for the future.

Team

Lindsay Forster (UK&I Customer Marketing Director)