As the insurer that looks after the most homes in New Zealand, AMI partnered with Habitat for Humanity with the goal of helping 75,000 Kiwis into warmer, drier houses over a three-year period.

Supporting warmer homes for Kiwis

Leaping at the opportunity to make a real difference for New Zealanders, AMI and Habitat for Humanity’s partnership has gone from strength to strength.

Beginning in 2021, a campaign to launch the partnership encouraged customers to participate in the cause and resulted in 25,000 Kiwis receiving support through the programme. As well as this positive result for New Zealanders, both brands saw increases in key brand metrics.

However, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for this sponsorship strategy. As with everything there were some challenges to overcome first.

For AMI this started with brand authenticity. The AMI team wanted to connect AMI to the real societal concern in a genuine way and avoid becoming an ‘associate and badge’ sponsorship. To do this they approached the issues, truths and insights from three perspectives; Habitat for Humanity, the families who need support and AMI customers.

They also wanted to include risk reduction as a key part of the strategy. Rather than being an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, how could AMI work to be more proactive rather than waiting until damage had already been done? To address this, AMI’s Risk Reduction team shared the issues they often see when in the field and found these aligned closely to the problems Habitat for Humanity observes with families. This alignment meant the solutions provided by the strategy worked for both parties.

It also resulted in an extra initiative – a nationwide survey that explored the issues of the home from an insurance perspective and a habitability perspective. 

And although AMI already knew its audience was concerned about housing deprivation and poverty, driving real engagement was another matter. To overcome this, the team ensured the launch campaign was simple and only focused on one housing issue – the lack of warmth in homes due to the lack of curtains – while making it really easy for the public to get involved, either by leveraging a donation made by AMI or by donating to Habitats key programmes.

Since the partnership launch, AMI’s brand consideration score and brand score for ‘warmth and kindness’ has improved by two percent each over the same period. Habitat has also enjoyed a decent percent awareness increase and a improved public affinity.

This marketing strategy also resulted in business-as-usual activities such as a new initiative developed by AMI where customers who have claimed damaged items can arrange a home collection so the items can be salvaged, repaired and sold through Habitat ReStores.   

Category
Excellence in Sponsorship Strategy

Company
IAG

Marketing Initiative
AMI + Habitat for Humanity

Marketing Partners
Colenso BBDO; PHD; Chemistry

Judges’ Comments
“The judges recognised this sponsorship strategy as a true and genuine partnership. The mutual alignment of values, the investment of an AMI employee embedded in Habitat for Humanity, was great to see. The judges noted the alignment of the business outcomes AMI seeks with a genuine ambition to improve the housing quality for New Zealanders. The results stood out in a hard-to-move category. The commitment to continue this partnership as BAU further supported the judge’s decision to award this sponsorship strategy the winner this year.”

Finalists
ANZ (ANZ – NZ Olympic and Paralympic Team Sponsorship); ANZ (ANZ Women’s Cricket World Cup 2022); ANZ (How ANZ Helped Save Daffodil Day); Tonkin + Taylor

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This article was originally published in the September/October 2022 issue of NZ Marketing. Click here to subscribe.