Some categories require looking harder for answers.

Life insurance is one of those.

History demonstrates how easy it is to fall into the same strategic traps.

By embracing the problems everyone else was avoiding, using extreme honesty to get to the truth, and by looking beyond our category, to culture, for answers; we made life insurance worth people’s attention.

This is a case where every strategic decision was interrogated – from the business problem, to audience, tone, to even how we considered the right partners.

This led to breakthrough work that found an unmissable and valuable place in people’s lives.

Partners Life is a New Zealand life insurance company. Our task was to promote the brand in a category where spend is high and interest is low.

The client brief outlined three challenges –

1. New Zealand’s relaxed outlook makes us vulnerable

New Zealand’s cultural tendency to understate risk is a huge barrier to consideration. Only 29% of us have life insurance (vs. 71% of Singaporeans).

2. Not worth it

With living costs at an all-time high, life insurance wasn’t seen as a priority. 54% say life insurance is too expensive.

3. Respected by the industry, but unknown to the public

Partners Life’s success was driven by its popularity with independent advisers. The next frontier of growth required greater awareness and acceptance from the public.

Objectives:

1. Grow category interest

- 58% to 63%

2. Increase brand awareness

- 23% to 28%

3. Increase brand consideration

- 21% to 26%

You won’t consider life insurance if you don’t consider death

Our business problem was tightly linked to a deeper cultural challenge.

Research uncovered our reluctance to engage with the category, was driven by our reluctance to engage with death itself.

There was a darker downside to our positive ‘she will be right’ outlook (see question 7).

New Zealanders dealt with challenging issues by avoiding them.

Advertising what not to do

Tracking research revealed advertising as the weakest motivational trigger.

Our competitors skirted around the reality of life insurance, instead celebrating the ‘joy and confidence’ of being covered.

This contrived truth simply didn’t resonate or motivate.

From who buys to who cares

The category has long-targeted men as the primary purchasers.

But research showed us women were often the people who identified the need and started the conversation.

We had an opportunity to embrace the nuanced dynamics of the whole market.

We’re not selling life insurance, we’re selling death insurance

Let’s stop overstating the benefit of peace of mind and accept the reality of what we’re selling.

People will engage with death when it’s not their own

While New Zealanders struggle with acknowledging their own mortality, death is a common theme in the entertainment we consume.

From true-crime podcasts to comedies – great entertainment made the subject palatable.

Rather than use advertising to get Kiwis thinking about death, let’s activate where people are already engaging with it.

There’s no hindsight when you’re dead

It’s often an accident, break-in, illness etc. that sparks interest in insurance.

Disasters make the need tangible.

Except with life insurance.

Because when disaster strikes, it’s too late for hindsight.

Insight: when it comes to life insurance, hindsight doesn’t help

Core strategic proposition: Partners Life is giving New Zealanders the hindsight they need before it’s too late

The Last Performance

Use the hindsight of the dead to convince people to take out life insurance

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We partnered with our most popular primetime murder mystery to demonstrate the risk of an unexpected death, by using the murdered characters as our spokespeople.

Knowing our disdain for life insurance advertising, we didn’t want to use the dead characters in a traditional campaign.

So, at the end of every episode, we brought these murdered characters back from the dead for one ‘last performance’, using the same actors, director, crew and sets.

These characters woke from the dead to share their regrets about not getting life insurance.

Every episode offered hindsight into the consequences of unexpected death, reflective of the characters life.

We reminded New Zealanders that that life isn’t scripted, so it’s best to ‘Plan ahead and get life right’.

We made a category that everyone wanted to avoid, completely unavoidable.

The Last Performance captured the attention of NZ and turned a nation apathetic to life insurance into one actively engaged with it.

We grew category interest

Objective: increase it’s important to have life insurance’ from 58% to 63%

Result: Increased by 12% points to 70%

We increased brand awareness

Objective: Increase from 23% to 28%

Result: increased by 6% points to 29%

We increased brand consideration

Objective: increase from 21% to 26%

Result: Increased to 26%

The campaign also sparked a positive reaction from Partners Life staff.

As a proud challenger brand, the campaign captured the disruptive spirit of the business itself.

“The Last Performance is a subversive and convention challenging campaign, using humour and integration to disrupt standard advertising in the insurance industry and encourage viewers to engage with the content, while also positively supporting our advisor network.”

- Naomi Ballantyne, Founder & CEO

‘She will be right’.

This is a phrase we referenced in question three of our submission.

To clarify this further, this is a really popular New Zealand phrase that essentially means: ‘don’t worry, everything will be alright’.

It speaks to our tendency as a culture to understate risk and things going wrong.

In a category like life insurance, which is strongly driven by our attitude to risk and negative unexpected things happening, this attitude creates a significant challenge.