We’re extremely proud of our work on the Swinton Mystery Tipper, especially as it has garnered the agency an armful of awards from two DMA Awards to two ISP Awards and two IPA Effectiveness Awards. We’ve had quite a few people ask to see our winning entry form… so here it is!

CONTEXT AND MARKET BACKGROUND

The insurance sector is a complex and increasingly challenging marketplace. For most of us, insurance has always been a distress purchase – something we grudgingly concede we need to have, and resent the increasing premiums. Three key innovations in the last decade have had a significant impact on the broader market. The launch of Direct Line’s online insurance offer, in 1999, following the formula of its breakthrough approach to offering insurance by telephone a decade earlier, forced every insurer and broker to reassess their approach – here was a company that made buying insurance simple and fuss-free, cutting out the middle man and talking everyday language. This sparked an extended period of discounting in the sector that still has ramifications today.

The rapid growth of Internet penetration in the UK, and its growing acceptance by consumers as a search tool for products and services, has altered the media landscape for insurers significantly since 2006. Yellow Pages, traditionally the bedrock of lead generation for every insurer and broker, has rapidly been replaced by search engines for all insurance markets.

Most recently, the development of insurance comparison sites, initiated by insurer the Admiral Group with the launch of Confused.com and quickly imitated by Moneysupermarket, Tesco Compare and others, has changed the insurer business model beyond recognition.

TAXI INSURANCE

Every taxi driver has to have a license to operate, granted and regulated by the local authority, and proof of valid comprehensive insurance is a mandatory requirement for obtaining and annually renewing the license. There are approximately 250,000 licensed taxi drivers in England and Wales, 70,000 of whom drive purpose built taxis and the remainder operating private hire vehicles. Most are self-employed, and the average insurance premium is £1,100. For a full time driver, who can earn £25–45k outside London, this is a significant, unavoidable operating expense.

In the last five years, the taxi insurance market has seen a rapid increase in competition, to the point where in 2008, the period of this case study, more than 30 insurers and brokers were regularly advertising in the specialist press. Most are small companies specialising in a few niche markets – many prompted by the impact of the heavy price discounting and transactional online marketing in mainstream insurance products.

Despite the powerful impact of the Internet on most insurance markets discussed earlier, penetration of online channels is low, and most taxi insurance leads still come in via more traditional channels. This is less surprising when you pause to consider the typical working day for a cabbie, with long hours spent in the cab and on the road – with no access to the Internet.

One aspect of this paper that is noteworthy, therefore, is the extensive use of promotional methods that might be considered ‘old-fashioned’, harking back to the days of the major national newspaper and radio sales promotion campaigns, where readers might be rewarded by a passing promotional girl while promenading at a seaside resort with a copy of the Sun under their arm. The Swinton Mystery Tipper campaign presented a unique opportunity to directly ‘touch’ the target audience, face to face, in large cities and small towns alike. In doing so, it leveraged what remains the most powerful marketing channel in this ‘Age of Reference’ – word of mouth – in this case, on the cab ranks.

OBJECTIVES OF THE CAMPAIGN

The business objective set by Swinton’s marketing team was to increase the volume of policies sold by 10% in the 2008 calendar year. In practice, this was quite a challenging target, as after a period of rapid growth up to 2002, Swinton’s taxi division had plateaued as a result of increasing competition in the market. By 2007, there were over 30 specialist insurers and brokers marketing to taxi drivers, resulting in a fragmented market and downward pressure on premiums.

In the context of Swinton’s overall business, the Taxi Division is a small but profitable niche market, one of several specialist units that the company has bought or acquired over the last decade.

A key marketing objective was to uncover a campaign strategy that could differentiate Swinton’s taxi proposition from the burgeoning number of competitors it faced, many marketing the same policies from a limited number of specialist insurance providers. Swinton had successfully used prize draw promotions during 2007 in other specialist units (caravan and motorhome, modified cars) to create a differentiated profile in a fragmented insurer landscape. The marketing brief included a £20k prize draw pot to be used in this context. It is important to recognise that, unlike some insurance markets, there are no significant seasonal peaks in renewals, so the campaign developed needed to be able to sustain momentum over the whole 12 month period.

THE SOLUTION

The campaign that emerged to address the brief sought to exploit the key characteristic of the marketplace at which it was aimed – that on a frequent basis our target audience congregated….on town centre cab ranks, at train stations and airports…in private hire cab offices. We wanted to develop some kind of visible symbol or ‘badge’ that would represent participation in our promotion and act both as a talking point and a reason to call. In such a fragmented and competitive market, core traditional channels such as Yellow Pages and the sector press (Private Hire & Taxi Monthly and Taxi Talk), were crowded environments. If we could find such a badge, we could simultaneously create a conversation point amongst cabbies and exploit free brand promotion – Swinton could ‘punch above its weight’. Taxi drivers are hard-working, hard-done-by, no nonsense characters. Getting their business can be tough, but once you’ve got it they can multiply it by talking on the ranks.

In short, we looked for a way to zig while others were zagging (in the proven channels). In Jean-Marie Dru’s language, we sought to ‘disrupt’ the market.

Enter The Swinton Mystery Tipper, a sassy cartoon character inspired by Dick Tracey with just a dash of Jessica Rabbit. The Mystery Tipper has a £1,000 tip to give away every month to cabbies throughout the UK but only when she spots her sticker in their window. To get that sticker, cabbies had to get a quote.

We had talked to many taxi drivers previously in research, and we already knew that tips and tipping were a source of much conversation in between fares. A campaign featuring a mysterious character that offered ‘the tip of a lifetime’ was clearly going to resonate with this target audience.

Buying insurance of any kind is a dour business and busy taxi drivers have less time than most to arrange theirs. If they’re not behind the wheel of their cab, they’re not earning money and because you’re more likely to find a cab driver at work, we took the campaign to them with a physical presence on the streets. Given this target audience is so time-poor, it was crucial to minimise objections and win them over quickly. So we created a fun, original campaign that was simple to enter and offered a handsome reward for very little effort.

Although a wide range of communication materials were developed for the campaign, the key element was the sticker. Using a 110mm by 110mm area, we had to develop a visual shorthand for the entire campaign that taxi drivers would not object to invading their workplace – the cab. We turned to Chicago-based illustrators Kunoichi, who provide illustration for Marvel and DC Comics, to bring the Mystery Tipper to life. The imagery, with strong 1940’s film noire undertones, created a powerful unifying identity for every element of the campaign, from direct mail to sector press advertising and PR and exhibition stands.

Lapsed customers received a direct mail pack encouraging them to come back to Swinton Taxi Division and to contact us to get their sticker and their chance to win £1,000. Current customers also received tailored mailpacks with stickers to give them a chance to win too, and exploit the ‘cab rank visibility’ to aid retention.

To get the Swinton Mystery Tipper sticker, new customers had to call for a quote. The campaign used trade press, DM, flyers and shout outs on local radio to get the word out about a mysterious woman tipping cabbies a grand in different UK cities throughout 2008. Advertorials in ‘detective speak’ ran in the trade press before and after every tip, showing a photo of the winner and announcing the next location. No skill required, just a sticker. And to get a sticker, you had to get a quote. Easy, effective and successful, the Mystery Tipper’s appeal was its simplicity.

As Tony Mite, Director and Chief Editor of Taxi Today, noted: “The concept is a brilliant bit of marketing. It gives the drivers something back and it can be at a local level, making it personal. When drivers see that it’s coming to their area they love it”.

THE ACTIVITY

Taxi drivers read newspapers, listen to the radio and browse the sector publications like Taxi Talk and Private Hire & Taxi Monthly – so adverts and editorials were placed there every month. Editorial is typically serious and newsy so the image of the Mystery Tipper with a fist full of cash really stands out. Over the course of 2008, as the promotion gathered steam, we enjoyed an increasing amount of free press coverage in the sector press and on their websites. As Liza Lipson, the National Advertising and Exhibition Co-ordinator for Private Hire and Taxi Monthly observed: “It is more important than ever to build brand awareness and encourage loyalty in this very competitive market. While taxi drivers may have initially doubted that anyone would win, the regular stories and pictures in PHTM prove the point and can only inspire them to get involved”.

Not every local authority would allow the Tipper into their town, so tip destinations were chosen by the client to include a mix of large and small cities in areas where they performed well.

The first tip in Liverpool, in March caused some anxiety, as we knew that at this early stage in a year-long campaign, only existing and lapsed customers would have much prior knowledge of the promotion. Thankfully, the leafleting of local offices in advance and PR through the sector press had created awareness, and several taxis sporting the sticker were spotted. Compare the first tip in Liverpool with the last tip of 2008, in Norwich, and the sense of expectation and excitement on the ranks was palpable. The cabbies knew the Mystery Tipper was coming and even the driver from Norwich airport quizzed our team to try to elicit information. The strategy had worked. In Leeds, Sheffield, Derby, Chester, Bristol, Newcastle, Norwich, Liverpool, Cambridge, Blackpool and Manchester, taxi drivers called to get their stickers in their thousands. Annoucing the date of the city she would visit next through flyers, trade press and on Facebook made sure a sense of excitement greeted every tip.

Despite the relative antipathy of taxi drivers towards online channels, we allocated a small investment from the limited budget to utilise the most cost-effective aspects of the web. A single page microsite ensured that the more web-savvy of our target audience could register their details (including that data capture jewel, their renewal date) at www.mysterytipper.co.uk. On the site a shadowy figure of the tipper ambles across the page to Sam Spade style music to add a little extra mystery.

The single biggest gathering of taxi drivers occurs in May every year at the Coventry Private Hire and Taxi Monthly exhibition. Swinton was a lead sponsor at the exhibition, and the powerful visual identity of the Mystery Tipper delivered record numbers of visitors to the stand, data capture forms and quotes on the day. Four £1,000 tips were awarded to drivers of ’stickered’ cabs located in the adjacent car parks.

RESULTS & PAYBACK

Twelve consecutive record months of results – in a mature market, for a long-established division – is an exceptional result. The success of this year-long campaign, driving up business by almost 30%, proved that it captured the imagination of no-nonsense cabbies. A powerful concept, executed with acute attention to detail across every touchpoint from exhibitions to Facebook, it has created an uplift in enquiries, quotes and policies that will benefit the business for several years. The campaign was so successful that it was an easy decision for the Swinton marketing team to extend the 2008 Mystery Tipper campaign into 2009, and makes the campaign even more cost-effective, as the origination costs of the campaign material are amortised over a longer period (some materials have been ‘refreshed’).

What’s more, the very nature of the campaign, with its ‘guerilla marketing’ aspects, means that the growing success we observed during 2008, with each tip enjoying greater success and anticipation than the last, has continued into 2009. Although outside the measurement scope for this paper, as we write this in April 2009 the previous month’s results (March 2009) are the biggest in the company’s history, with almost 8,000 calls to the business unit.

Campaign performance is measured at Swinton through three key metrics – calls, quotes and policies. Calls and quotes have an additional long-term value to the company, even if Swinton doesn’t successfully convert first time around, in that vital information on renewal date and (for quotes) vehicle details is captured. ‘Quotes Not Taken Up’ (QNTU) is the most cost-effective recruitment method (after referrals) of all channels, so the call uplift created by the campaign has a long term value to the business.

Calls to the Taxi Division increased by 26.4% year on year to 55,678 from 44,056 in 2007. Quotes increased by 23.8% to 22,455. Quote to policy conversion rates held up well – there was some nervousness initially that the campaign would result in more ‘frivolous’ quotes – at 16.0% versus 16.47% in 2007. The net result was a 20.3% uplift in policies year on year, producing £637,000 of incremental premium business at an average premium of £1,040.

Average retention rates for Swinton in this sector are 70%, which means that the incremental business generated in 2008 will yield an estimated extra premium income of around £2m over the lifetime of the incremental business written. Add to this the extra 11,500 calls that will provide a rich source of renewal-dated data for future campaigns. There is also the cost amortisation of rolling out the campaign through 2009, and perhaps beyond, and the cumulative effect we have observed throughout 2008 and early 2009.

The total 2008 marketing budget for the Taxi Division, including administration, outbound call centre costs, all marketing materials and prize funds, was £463k. This is the most rigorous, but perhaps the fairest, measure against which to judge the campaign, as we observed a campaign impact on every single channel, even those which did not directly exploit the Mystery Tipper campaign elements, such as Yellow Pages.

When considering payback, therefore, the ‘worst case’ ROI is to directly attribute the £2m of lifetime premium income against these costs, giving a Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) of 431%, or £4.31 of premium per £ invested in marketing. In practice, the cumulative growing impact of the promotion, the exploitation of the additional renewal data, and the cost amortisation of the campaign over 2009 and beyond will all contribute to an even better final reckoning.

SUMMARY

The enormous success of the 2008 campaign gave the client a compelling reason to extend the campaign for a second year. In the market context of increased competition in a fragmented market, Swinton Taxi Division has seen a sharp and sustainable rise in new business that would never have happened without a campaign that so ferociously injected new life into this distress purchase market.

It was a simple idea, with its roots in traditional marketing and promotional techniques, but it became a winning campaign by being virtually impossible to miss. By putting in the hours, pounding the streets all over the UK and keeping up the momentum in every city visited its success continued to grow and outperform expectations.

By taking the campaign directly to the streets, the Mystery Tipper sticker created conversations on the ranks as cabbies speculated about where she would appear next. They encouraged each other to get their sticker, which helped Swinton Taxi Division collect valuable data. This data was a crucial part of this campaign’s success and renewal dates in particular, are the jewel in the data capture crown across the insurance sector.

The campaign has already been recognised by the industry with a B2B Marketing Award, DMA Gold and Silver Awards and is a finalist in two categories in the ISP Awards. More importantly, the Swinton Mystery Tipper completely smashed the 10% target in the initial brief and has given the client a database of prospects and renewal dates that will benefit the business over a several year time frame.

Tags: Adrian Rowe, Advertising Agency Manchester, Award-Winning Marketing Campaign, B2B Marketing Award, Direct Marketing Agency, Direct Response Advertising Agency, DMA Awards, Facebook, IPA Effectiveness Awards, ISP Awards 2009, Kunoichi, Online Marketing Agency, PPC Advertising Campaign, Red C, Swinton Mystery Tipper, Twitter

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