The effects of climate change continue to make Queensland more susceptible to extreme weather, causing the cost of insurance to skyrocket. In some cases, entire towns are uninsurable. So, over the last few years, Suncorp Insurance has shifted its strategy from ‘recovery’ to ‘resilience’. Because if people make their homes stronger in the face of extreme weather, it reduces claims, displacement and trauma.

In 2021 Suncorp launched ‘One House to Save Many’ - the world’s first home designed, scientifically tested, and built to withstand cyclones, floods, and bushfires. ‘Resilience Road’ is about scaling the learnings from ‘One House’ and applying them to real houses, on a vulnerable street in Queensland.

The objectives of the campaign were to embed ‘resilience’ into the public discourse, to show how easy and affordable it can be to make your home more resilient, and to demonstrate that Suncorp was a leader in resilience.

Suncorp's mission is to 'Put Australia on the road to Resilience', so we took one of Australia's most vulnerable streets and made it one of the strongest. We analysed each home on a disaster-prone street in Queensland, and applied the scientific learnings and techniques from 'One House to Save Many' to make each home more resilient to bushfires, floods and cyclones.

‘Resilience Rd’ was designed to teach Australians the value of resilience and how to make their homes stronger in the face of increasing extreme weather. And to continue to position Suncorp as an industry leader in resilience.

In the face of increasing extreme weather, Suncorp Insurance shifted their focus from ‘recovery’, to ‘resilience’. Because resilient homes mean less claims, and more affordable insurance for everyone.

Australia is a home-renovation obsessed country. So our key PR message was about prompting people to ‘make resilience their next renovation’ instead of focussing on their home aesthetics.

We reached out to news outlets including ‘The Today Show’, which ran multiple live crosses to ‘Resilience Road’.

We embedded ‘resilience’ into Australia’s most popular renovation-based TV show, ‘The Block’, by rewarding participants for adding resilient features to their builds. We also partnered with ‘Grand Designs’, ‘Real Estate Australia’ and other places where upgrading homes was front of mind.

Suncorp’s target audience was mid to high income home owners in Australia, with a focus on the State of Queenslnd. The broader audience was all Australian home-owners and government organisations.

‘Resilience Rd’ had 3 key phases:

EXCITE: Bringing attention to the issue of home resilience.

Led by film and PR, ‘Resilience Rd’ encouraged Australians to talk about the issue of home resilience.

We produced a short film in which we talked to families that lived on the street about their own experiences with natural disasters, and documented the creation of ‘Resilience rd’ itself.

ENGAGE: Encouraging Australians to ‘Make resilience their next renovation’

Through content, paid (TV, digital display, OOH) and partnerships (‘The Block’, ‘Grand Designs’), Australians were encouraged and shown how to make resilience a priority over aesthetic renovations to their homes.

EQUIP: Providing products and services to enable readiness and protection.

Lastly, we created TV, OLV, radio, and OOH informing Australians of Suncorp’s products and services specifically designed to help them build resilience to natural disasters.

CAMPAIGN RESULTS:

*Reached 95% of Queenslanders in the first 4 weeks of launch.

*54,000+ unique website visitors.

*33 million impressions.

BUSINESS IMPACT:

*Suncorp are now rewarding customers for building resilience into their homes with industry leading products.

*+75% increase in home policy growth (a YOY record).

*Maintained leadership position in home awareness.

*Grown consideration position to #2.

*+6.2% increase in new policies (Record quarter performance)

CULTURAL IMPACT:

*Covered by several news outlets including multiple live crosses from ‘The Today Show’.

*Partnered with Australia's most popular TV show - ‘The Block’ - embedding resilience into the public discourse. The home renovation show rewarded participants for adding resilience to their builds.

*The city of Rockhampton officially co-named the street ‘Resilience Road’.

*Led by Suncorp, the Insurance Council of Australia has since launched Project Resilience, which aims to embed resilience into the National Construction Code by 2025.