The Campaign

Consumer research showed that we were facing a double skepticism from Chinese consumers; towards the insurance industry and towards international players. To win Chinese consumers’ trust and heart, we needed to prove, advocate and demonstrate AXA’s proactive protection promise. Local insurance brands are extremely similar in their promotions and platforms. The Agency's’ Meaningful Brands® study identified that we could differentiate through community/charity and playing a role to make a positive impact on our consumers’ relationships with others. No other brand in the audit was outperforming on these drivers. The best protection is to make consumers fully realise the important of safety.

Creative Execution

We promote everyday protection and safety by initiating AXA's “No Belt, No Drive” CSR program launched in PR, mobile safety classroom events, social media and geo-targeted display ads. Families and drivers were asked to pledge “no belt, no drive” and a music track & video helped extend the message to drivers. The AXA People Protector community was established on WeChat - China’s leading social network app – providing inspiring innovations, tips and ideas in the safety & protection space and its content promoted through KOLs. The AXA DRIVE mobile APP launched pre-installed on the new Apple iwatch and provided drivers with a life tool like a fitbit for drivers and driving. A download and usage campaign launched via social media. Paid, Owned&Earned touchpoint deployed were: TV,OOH, Internet, CSR Partnership and mobile app. The media mix strategy was optimized and skewed to improve coverage by focusing on internet/mobile and social media.

Planned media reach at 50% was achieved with 57% aided recollection reported. People who reconized the campaign had been reached via the 3 media, digital, TV and OOH. [Source: TNS Brand Preference Tracker 2015] AXA People Protectors community on Wechat reached 133.000 subscribers by end of September [Source: AXA PP Official Wechat] and pacing of performance would see it over perform on planned KPI of 154,000 subscribers. Over 112,000 parents and kids participated in the mobile safety classroom and 81,142 pledges to “No Belt, No Drive” [Source: MSL event participants report Sep 2015] Mobile app downloads and usage on track delivering 95% of KPIs with 4 weeks still to go. [Source: AXA DRIVE APP backend] The result of integration, media investments, PR& Buzz efficienty lifted spontaneous brand awareness +9pts and directly impacted consideration for AXA(+9pts).

In the current of digitization and growth in digital media consumption, there are other media channels that offer excellent opportunities to advertisers and with the right combination of creative and media are contextual, relevant and highly impactful. By using media in the right context, AXA demonstrated with traditional and new media channels, it was still able to generate highly meaningful results.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

AXA had no corporate spending in China and its master brand awareness among Chinese consumers was negligible. The consumer tended to trust well-known local brands as a default so first and foremost, we needed to enlarge the audience that know and trust AXA considering that the major players would outspend us by up to 10 times. We would need to support brand engagement beyond products and promotions to establish a meaningful differentiation in the category. With a relatively smaller budget, we needed to make a brand impact that would seriously change AXA’s level of awareness and credibly engage the target audience to trust and consider AXA beyond products and promotions.