Sovereign – Leaders in Life

Category: Consumer Services

Advertiser: Sovereign

Campaign: Leaders in Life

SUMMARY
Declining brand health was becoming a direct threat to Sovereign's continued success.
The challenge was to re-introduce Sovereign to New Zealanders in a way that would establish a brand identity beyond the Independent Financial Advisers, and engage an audience in a category they would rather ignore.

The strategy positioned Sovereign in the context of major 'life events' to best convey the emotional freedom the brand offers and encourage consumers to embrace life insurance rather than fear it. All brand health measures quickly recovered to exceed the targets set. Preference improved by 122% to reach 8.2%. This resulted in a dramatic rise in call centre leads, a greatly improved rate of conversion and delivered an increase of $6.357 million in annual new business revenue.
It won TBWA/Tequila a Bronze EFFIE in Consumer Services.

MARKETING CHALLENGE
The Life Insurance market is driven by a combination of saliency, trust and professionalism – it is difficult to attract new business and retain existing policyholders if you are not 'on the map' in consumers' minds. Even small increases on brand health measures are hard to achieve in this market, reflective of consumers' low involvement and engagement with the category. As Sovereign had received no brand support over the past three years its market leader position was under threat.

The challenge was to re-introduce Sovereign to New Zealanders in a way that would establish a brand identity beyond the Independent Financial Advisers, and engage an audience in a category they would rather ignore and forget. The ultimate goal was to deliver business results in a highly competitive market, no mean feat given a share of voice of just 11% for the duration of the campaign.

CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES
The objective of the “leaders in Life” campaign was to:

• Increase Sovereign's unprompted awareness from 13.7% to 15% (Target Market) and 8.6% to 10% (All Consumers)
• Lift consideration from 3.1% (the industry low) to 5%
• To recover preference levels amongst the Target Market from 3.7% to 6%
• Amongst risk users who recall Sovereign advertising achieve relevance of at least 50%
• Strengthen Sovereign's brand image associations on all key attributes notably:
  a)'An insurance company I respect'
  b)'Professional and competent'

Note: while these targets appear modest, they reflect the low life insurance category norms.

Business Objectives

• Increase direct leads to the Sovereign call centre by 20% versus a year ago each month the campaign ran
• Increase conversion rate from 20% to 25%
• Deliver growth in retained business of 10%
  

TARGET AUDIENCE
The core target is aged between 25–54, supporting partners or young families with medium to high personal incomes ($30k+).

CREATIVE STRATEGY
The creative strategy expressed a universal truth that even though a loved one is no longer physically with us they are still looking out for us. It's memories that keep people alive, and the communications were to be a celebration of 'real' life and family memories.

The creative solution was to create simple, honest and direct pieces to camera – messages left for family members from a loved one who has passed. The communication depicted real life situations of family members expressing their love for their family. They were crafted to convey the satisfaction that comes from knowing that even though they may no longer be there to physically look after them, they have taken care of their family's future through a life insurance policy with Sovereign.

MEDIA STRATEGY
Media was focused on linking the communications to 'life events'.
MEDIA
Magazine

Press
Online
Event

TOTAL MEDIA EXPENDITURE:
$1 to $2 million

RESULTS

The campaign:

• Raised awareness
• Lifted brand perceptions
• Resulted in business leads, higher conversion rates and major lift in revenue

Unprompted Brand Awareness


Monthly Leads