Advertising is everywhere, but what catches your attention? One insurer is mixing the message with mirth to bring back those clients who may have gone for the cheaper option.
“In life, we make a lot of decisions we later regret,” said Paul J. Krump, executive vice president of The
Chubb Corporation. “This certainly has been true for many businesses and individuals that mistakenly believed that insurance is a commodity product and routinely purchased the cheapest they could find. The same can be said of others who switched to lower cost insurance during the economic downturn. Fortunately, there’s still time to reconsider those decisions before it’s too late.”
The commercial series takes a humorous look at life’s regrettable choices, with Chubb presented as the insurance company you’re glad you chose when you or your business experiences a loss.
“The humorous approach is not new for us,” Mark Greenberg, SVP and chief communications officer, Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, told
Insurance Business. “This is part of an ad campaign we’ve been running since 2009. It has been written up in the
The New York Times because of its humorous approach.”
Examples of the commercials can be seen
here.
The has just started airing on CNBC, ESPN, Golf Channel and Tennis Channel, the campaign is supported by print advertising running on the op-ed pages of
The Wall Street Journal and
The New York Times and in eight insurance trade publications.
Chubb-appointed agents and brokers will be able to place co-op versions of the ads in local market publications.
Using the tag line ‘insurance doesn’t matter until it does,’ the commercials use ludicrous and hazardous situations like a man fishing in a canoe with his back to Niagara Falls about to go over; or one of a man lining up a shot on a golf course with a water trap behind him, with an alligator coming out heading straight for him; and one of a woman spreading out a blanket in a park for a picnic, unaware that a bull is charging the red blanket she is waving.
“We’re competing against more interesting product categories, both in print as well as television,” says Greenberg. “No one is stopping and saying, ‘Oh, let me read this insurance ad!’ We need something with stopping power to get people to look and listen to what you are saying.”
There is not a lot of text in the ads, as Greenberg explains that you have about a second to get the consumer’s attention, and another second for them to read the message.
“If you don’t have stopping power, then you’ve wasted your money,” he says. “And they just turn the page.”
The message of the commercial campaign (which currently is only being released in the U.S., but there are plans to bring it to Canadian audiences soon) is directed at those who left Chubb on price point and now have regrets.
“Our biggest advocates are those who have had claims; we pride ourselves on our claims’ service,” says Greenberg. “Especially those who have had a claim in a previous relationship with another insurer, they become our best advocates and sales people.
“The last thing people want to wonder about is if they are going to fight for their money after a loss.”
For Chubb’ U.S. divisions, their business consists of 40 per cent personal and 60 per cent commercial.
In addition to those who have experience ‘insurance regret,’ the commercials are also directed at the older, wealthier demographic – those who are ready to “step up” their coverage from the mass marketers, says Greenberg, and take on a more comprehensive, tailored insurance policy.
“Those mass marketing policies may have been appropriate when the client was starting out in life, struggling with costs,” says Greenberg, “but now that they have ‘made it’ in life – these people realize that they’ve outgrown the mass market product and it is time to move on to a better product.”
