Why is this work relevant for Media?

The campaign was a real-time demonstration of the unpredictability of life and the significant benefits of life insurance. By publicly and unexpectedly killing off our brand mascot, we immersed potential customers in the experience of suddenly losing someone close(ish) to them. The ensuing media channels were chosen to continue the journey from death, to mourning, to life insurance claim, all in order to help apathetic young New Zealanders understand the importance of life insurance for when they themselves pass away and leave loved ones behind.

Background

For almost ten years, the face of LifeDirect has been their obscure mascot ‘Simon the Sloth’ – a lethargic, animated character who, not surprisingly, had lost relevance. We were tasked with reinvigorating the brand, and driving leads, awareness, and web traffic amongst New Zealanders 25 – 35; a demographic with an ever-increasing responsibility to insure themselves for the benefit of their dependents. The problem is, they view death as a distant, irrelevant issue. As far as the category is concerned, in 2016, New Zealand had the third lowest uptake of insurance among 31 OECD countries. As New Zealand's leading life insurance comparison site, LifeDirect aggregates policies from many different brands, so they looked to benefit from increased interest in the category as a whole.

Describe the creative idea/insights (30% of vote)

In 2016, New Zealand had the third lowest uptake of insurance among 31 OECD countries, and new customer rates within life insurance were especially dismal, at 12%. Also, as an aggregator of life insurance policies from many different brands, LifeDirect will likely benefit from general interest in the category anyway. Past campaign research showed that New Zealanders didn’t know what Simon stood for, or why he was relevant to life insurance; they knew him as ‘that sloth on tv’ but couldn’t link him to the brand. He was well-known enough that we could kill him off, and ambiguous enough that people wouldn’t hold it against us. We were in a unique position where we could kill a mascot not just figuratively, but literally. Not many brands can get away with that a) because their mascots are loved and b) death isn't relevant to their category.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

The strategy was simple: use media to take apathetic consumers on a journey of losing someone close(ish) to them. In this case, our outdated mascot, Simon. By publicly and unexpectedly killing off our brand mascot, we immersed potential customers in the experience of suddenly losing someone close(ish) to them. The ensuing media channels were chosen to continue the journey from death, to mourning, to life insurance claim, all in order to help apathetic young New Zealanders aged 25 - 35, understand the importance of life insurance for when they themselves pass away and leave loved ones behind.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

First up, we pushed Simon off a cliff on ‘live’ TV – 25 national channels during primetime, aired just once - leaving viewers with nothing but unanswered questions. As intended, this whipped up a social media ‘WTF’ storm. The following day, we published a full-page obituary in the national dailies, announcing that Simon had died, but he’d failed to specify his life insurance beneficiaries. This was supported by digital outdoor and a 'memorial video' from LifeDirect staff on their social channels. Kiwis who ‘knew’ Simon were then invited to share stories about their relationship with him, in order to win a slice of the pay-out. Perhaps you were his long-lost twin? Or an ex-lover from his days in the Navy? As well as sharing the stories via the entrants’ social channels, the microsite was essentially a hub for data collection, gathering email addresses and redirecting visitors to lifedirect.co.nz upon completion.

List the results (30% of vote)

The campaign set us up with a new brand platform for ongoing LifeDirect communications: Unexpected Happens. In terms of results, R.I.P Simon exceeded client expectations significantly: - 32% increase in site traffic (lifedirect.co.nz) - 44% increase in brand preference - 17,000+ microsite visits - 8,691 unique entries - 9.6% increase in quotes - 12.7 million impressions