We partnered with one of the biggest production and film houses in the world, The Jim Henson Company, to create a 5 minute blockbuster film to tackle the ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’ cultural phenomenon which is rampant in Australia.

The Jim Henson Company have been storytellers for over 50 years. We engaged our audience via film, published book, mailers, OOH media takeovers, content and special builds to cut through the B2B market, usually dominated with dull, uninspiring messaging, by creating a motivating story to teach both small business owners and future generations to embrace ambition in the face of adversity.

In Australian culture we have a phenomenon called ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’, where ambitious people are verbally or emotionally cut down. Basically, nobody is meant to be better than others, nobody is allowed to stand out. This is bad news for ambitious business owners, and even worse for the brokers who help insure them.

CGU Insurance, Australia's leading insurer for small businesses, set out to change the nation’s view of ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’ by creating a B2B integrated campaign like no other, including a short film with the Jim Henson Company, a 5-minute long paid TV ad, a published book and ambitious media placements that seek to chip away at the scourge of ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’ and celebrate ambition in culture

To change Australia’s attitude towards ambition and draw attention to the issue, we developed the idea of ‘Tall Poppy’, a not-so-little girl who is ambition personified. Poppy faces the same challenges as our small business owners, misunderstood and bullied by those around her, but like our small business owners, she won’t be cut down and her ambition prevails.

The ambitious nature of this approach was designed to spark the conversation directly with small business owners and brokers on what it means to be a ‘Tall Poppy’ giving small business owners the confidence to stand tall.

Our aim was to target business insurance brokers, in a world usually dominated with dull, uninspiring messaging. There are 12k insurance brokers in Australia. Our Tall Poppy narrative spoke to them directly by creating a B2B campaign to elevate their role in culture: to nurture and protect their client's ambition.

To cut through the noise, we sent the Tall Poppy book and film via video-mailer directly to brokers to spread the message of Tall Poppy.

The ‘Tall Poppy’ film was created by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop using a technique which has never been done before. This involved taking tabletop puppetry that has always been a minimalist performance art form for theater and bringing it into the world building of feature films. Each puppet was shot individually, the puppeteers were digitally removed and the characters were composited into computer generated backgrounds with VFX added by Stargate Studios.

The 'Tall Poppy’ campaign launched in mainstream media (TV, cinema, online) in February and is still live.

The 5-minute film launched nationwide during 60 Minutes (Australia’s leading current affairs program), ran on TV, BVOD, cinema, digital and direct to broker video mailers. Additional executions ran in OOH, display, print and social media. The published book of Tall Poppy was distributed to thousands of brokers and CGU Insurance staff.

We launched Tall Poppy on the 20th of February and within 2 weeks we had received over 61 pieces of coverage leading to 230k views of the film and counting. These promising organic views suggest two things. One. This idea has directly tapped into the cultural phenomena of Tall Poppy syndrome in Australia. Two. This campaign has heavily resonated with Australians.

The integrated campaign (including a film, OOH, print and digital) received high engagement and reach:

61 pieces of earned coverage secured across print, broadcast (TV & radio), online and social.

100% neutral to positive brand sentiment with all referencing CGU Insurance with a reach of 18 million.

360k Youtube views on the 9 minute film and counting

98% of people watched 5 min film through on 60 minutes

Dwell time of 8.57 minutes on the Tall Poppy e-book suggesting people are reading it in it’s entirety.