Direct > Culture & Context
TBWA\NEW ZEALAND, Auckland / SOUTHERN CROSS PET INSURANCE / 2023
Awards:
Overview
Credits
Why is this work relevant for Direct?
VIS - The Road Safety Collection is a behaviour change campaign that aimed to make Kiwi pets safer around busy roads. The entire fashion collection, from the couture one-offs to the mass produced bandana range, was designed to immediately improve the visibility of pets walking close to roads. The fashion-inspired assets surround the campaign had two jobs to do: 1) raise the awareness of pet road safety 2) Encourage pet owners to apply for a VIS garment online and wear our message with pride.
Background
Southern Cross Pet Insurance (SCPI) is New Zealand’s largest pet insurer. Launching in 2012, it became one of three brands in market. Since, the business has become category leader: in 2021, it held 29% share of market.
With only 23% of pet owners having insurance, the market is ripe for growth. While an opportunity, it has also brought a severe increase in threat, with new competitors entering market to take share – and customers – off SCPI. There are now more than 10 brands in market, including SCPA: New Zealand’s largest animal charity and pet adoption centre. Subsequently, SCPI’s SoV has decreased to just 4%.
As such, SCPI briefed us to:
1. ATTITUDINAL: Drive favourability– make existing customers and considerers of pet insurance view SCPI favourably
2. BEHAVIOURAL: Increase preference– make SCPI the preferred pet insurer of choice
3. COMMERCIAL: Defend market share– deliver communications which defends SCPI’s market positioning
Describe the creative idea
Pet insurance is much of a muchness. There is little to differentiate insurers bar brand and price. We did not want to enter a discount war. Instead, we wanted to tackle a meaningful problem for pets: road safety.
Our solution was to make pets more visible around roads, day and night, in a way that was unmissable.
VIS The Road Safety Collection is a collaboration with renowned Italy-based fashion designer Matthew Adams Dolan – stylist to stars like Rihanna. Together, we dropped a limited-edition pet fashion collection consisting of one-off couture garments and an ‘off the rack’ reflective bandana range every Kiwi pet could get their paws on.
The collection was created from special materials that looked stylish in daylight, and then lit up in car headlights at night. Rather than launch a typical insurance campaign, we launched VIS like a famous fashion collection with catwalk shows and fashion
Describe the strategy
It goes without saying our audience love their pets. However, their relationship with insurer is typically transactional. With new market entrants such as SPCA, who naturally generate goodwill, we knew we needed to upweight SCPI’s emotional connection with pet owners.
Claims data revealed accidents around roads are one of the most common reasons pet owners claim, yet nobody was talking about pet road safety. We knew if we could raise awareness of the issue, we’d not only drive goodwill, but reduce the number of pets that were injured around roads.
Moreover, as a not-for-profit, preventing claims from happening by keeping pets healthier and happier, meant more money going towards helping pets live longer, healthier and happier lives.
Our strategy in brief: To drive favourability and preference for SCPI by highlighting pets around key traffic areas, thereby reducing likelihood of accidents
Describe the execution
Working with a Milan-based designer from New Zealand presented a few logistical challenges, but we were lucky Matthew had his own four-legged model, Maisy, in the studio with him. Pets with four paws are a little trickier to dress than people, but we managed to create a range of stylish garments for animals of all sizes.
The idea was to combine Matthew’s signature oversized and exaggerated design features with special materials that would make pets physically unmissable to distracted drivers.
Our couture pieces include an adorable neon puffer jacket, an iridescent windbreaker, reflective biker jacket, trench coat and business shirt, two wooly jumpers with reflexive yarns and a chunky vest.
We knew the couture range would get people talking, but it also had to be accessible for all pet owners. So we mass-produced a VIS bandana which works with any existing leash or harness worldwide.
List the results
Drive Favourability:
Following launch, we drove 140 million impressions, with 3.5m in just 24 hours.
Engagement with SCPI increased by 200% vs previous year.
Among existing pet insurers, brand tracking showed:
• 8% increase in trustworthiness
• 5% increase in people believing the business puts pets before profit
• 5% increase in helping to educate pet owners
Among pet owners, we further increased awareness of SCPI’s pet road safety initiatives to 26%.
Increase Preference:
SCPI is now the most preferred provider in market at 24%.
SCPI is the most considered insurer in market, at 32%.
Defend Market Share:
Despite low SoV, we managed to increase market share from 29% to 31%, double that of our nearest competitor.
There has further been a 50% increase in competitor customers switching to SCPI.
Most critically, we saw traffic claims (value) decrease 38% year-on-year, meaning more pets have avoided collisions due to our campaign.
Please tell us how disruption in your market place inspired the work
Southern Cross Pet Insurance’s brand platform, Live Your Pet Life, is all about disrupting the insurance market.
Where insurance companies usually wait until after the worst has happened to step in, Southern Cross has made it their mission to step in before in order to prevent incidents from happening in the first place.
VIS also disrupted the market in another way. Insurance campaigns tend to portray horror stories, where consumers are tempted into taking our policies by seeing the worse.
Our approach to lean into the fashion world was highly disruptive and unseen for the category. Launching like a fashion label helped the issue, and our pet safety collection, stand out in a notoriously bland and depressing market.
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