I know… I agree… it does seem strange having the words ‘fun’ and ‘insurance’ in one headline but have you noticed nearly all the leading insurance brands are attempting it? I know that Meerkat has just popped straight into your head but it’s not the only insurance brand to be using a ‘character’ to try and instil more fun (and consequently more brand recognition of course) into the fight for your insurance quote.

We all hate getting them… whether its quotes for home, car, pet, buildings, contents (the list goes on) and all we really want is the lowest price with of course the most comprehensive cover, so is this approach working for insurance brands and how are they achieving it?

Standing out in a fierce market

It’s not the easiest industry to be a marketer in… it’s an intangible product that we have to buy not want to buy. A search on Google for ‘car insurance’ gives you a huge 94 million search results, so to get your insurance brand the 1^st page of Google means that you need to create a point of difference… which in insurance is difficult to do.

So how have brands come up with a proposition to make them stand out in the competitive insurance market, and keep their name at the forefront of your mind when your renewal window approaches? Having written a few creative briefs for insurance products I have been faced with this challenge countless times. So I can see why insurance brands have felt the need to inject some fun into their campaigns to create some stand-out and loyalty in a market that is dominated by ‘cheaper insurance’ messages.

Did it all start with ‘calm down dear’?

Although known for being highly irritating, you can still hear Michael Winner saying this Esure catchphrase – how many other catchphrases can you remember from 2007? The Esure advert actually came 4^th in the ‘most irritating adverts of 2007 and whilst it may be debatable whether this campaign brought any fun to the insurance market; annoying does usually result in being memorable. Take Sheila’s Wheels for example, voted 11^th in the most irritating adverts that same year, it also had the highest recall in a single week according to Marketing’s Adwatch of the year.

And now most of the leading insurance brands have a ‘brand ambassador’… be it a cartoon character or personality to differentiate themselves. And some insurance brands are even genuinely adding fun into their campaigns without the irritability factor. You don’t actually realise how many there are until you start concentrating on it…GoCompare’s Gio Compario, Moneysupermarket and Omid Dialili, Aviva and Paul Whitehouse, MoreThan and Julian Barratt, Swift Cover and Iggy Pop, Churchill’s nodding dog and my favourite (and a no doubt a large percentage of the UK’s) Comparethemarket’s Aleksandr Orlov.

In the fun stakes comparethemarket.com are definitely winning for me and undoubtedly for the company’s brand recall figures too, having the 3^rd highest recall of an advert – 74% in a single week in Adwatch 2009. And I am accompanied by many others in the UK… Aleksandr Orlov has a staggering 31k followers on Twitter and 681k fans on facebook (compare that to the Churchill’s dog’s 2.5k fans).

He produces genuinely amusing regular status updates and I’ve seen a whopping 2.5k fans liking them and 1k commenting on them! The demand was so high for 5,000 limited edtion Aleksandr Orlov meerkat toys that Harrods boss Mohammed Al Fayed decided to give them to charities instead of selling them in the run up to Christmas.

Is it working though?

But the ultimate question for all us response driven marketers out there is, is this actually generating ROI in the fierce market for insurance quotes and polices? Well, comparethemarket.com have stated there has been a 100% uplift in visits to their website since the campaign started in January 2009. However, even though comparethemarket.com came 3^rd in Adwatch’s 2009 highest recall in a single week, the two brands above it came at a little surprise… Churchill is at number 2, with the Churchill dog talking to Rolf Harris, and Confused is at number 1 with no humour or brand ambassador, just ‘everyday people’ simply talking about the user-friendliness of the website.

So a lot has to be said for an advert which clearly states the main product benefit –  especially when it’s getting remembered the most. And being remembered is what all brands in the insurance sector are fighting for as getting your brand at the forefront of consumers’ minds as renewal dates approach is the key to success.

So even though my favourite meerkat was beaten in this poll, I also wanted to highlight that Churchill and Confused came in at 7^th and 5^th in Adwatch’s most irritating adverts of 2009, where comparethemarket.com didn’t feature. Whilst irritating has obviously resulted in high awareness in Churchill and Confused’s case I do wonder if this can be sustained in the long term or if we’ll ‘give up’ on those irritating brands and maintain a relationship with those that genuinely entertain us?

Creating the next meerkat

I hope I’ve demonstrated how some brands are beginning to make insurance more fun and that in some cases it has certainly been worth doing so. I’m not saying it’s easy to do; otherwise we’d all be coming up with campaigns as successful as comparethemeerkat. but in meantime keep questioning your proposition until you find something that stands above your competitors.

Tags: Adwatch, Aleksandr Orlov, Aviva, Churchill dog, Comparethemarket.com, Comparethemeerkat, Confused.com, Digital Agency, Direct Marketing Agency, Email Marketing Agency, Esure, Gio Compario, GoCompare, Iggy Pop, Insurance Advertising, Julian Barratt, Manchester Advertising Agency, Michael Winner, Mohammed Al Fayed, Moneysupermarket, MoreThan, New Media Agency, Omid Dialili, Online Marketing Agency, Paul Whitehouse, PPC Agency, Rolf Harris, SEO Company, Sheila’s Wheels, Swift Cover, Twitter

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 12:23 pm and is filed under Advertising, Blog, Branding, Creativity, Direct Marketing, General Interest, Influences, Inside Information, Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.