Looking to engage Kiwis on the not-so-fun topic of content insurance, IAG introduced Tally, a fast, fun and engaging extension to its State Contents Insurance brand.
Know your worth
The challenge
Realising growth in the insurance category is particularly challenging, largely focused on short-term acquisition offers, but talking to the less than two percent of customers in market at any given time. Insurance companies have thus traditionally looked to grow by getting customers to switch from other competitors for easy financial wins. State, however, needed to do something drastically different to reverse its six years of consecutive customer loss. But with so many Kiwis without contents insurance, it didn’t have to be this way.
Following some market research, State discovered that the real reason people weren’t buying contents insurance was that they didn’t believe they had enough stuff worth insuring. So, the value people place on insurance is entirely dependent on the value of their stuff. It also found that under 35s were twice as likely to not have contents insurance.
The response
These insights in turn transformed State’s approach. The insurance provider discovered that it could lead the market in talking to this previously ignored uninsured market, offering them the protection they didn’t know they needed by starting a conversation around the value and benefits of insurance.
However, State soon discovered that the only way to calculate the value of everything an individual owns was to use an online calculator, which required much information and was time consuming – especially for that under 35 market. So, State created ‘Tally’.
Tally is a modern take on an insurance calculator, an online app with Tinder-style swipe functionality that quickly establishes how much an individual’s stuff is worth. It’s fast, free, and available to all (not just State customers). Most importantly, it’s also pre-populated with the most common items that State’s target market might own. What’s more it also estimated the value of those items, as a starter, so users didn’t themselves have to figure it out.
But, a tool with no users wasn’t very useful. The challenge was to get people to engage. So, State sparked curiosity in two ways. First, show consumers the surprisingly high value of everyday items, to get them to reconsider the value of their own stuff. Then, show up in moments they were most receptive to thinking about their precious stuff.
The result
Through smart targeting and custom audiences, State showed up when people were buying big ticket items – a moment when its message was more likely to resonate. Once they’d found out the value of their stuff, Tally closed the loop and pointed them towards State Contents Insurance as the perfect solution to ensure their precious stuff was protected.
Tally delivered wholeheartedly on State’s brand promise, delivering insurance for too busy lives. People want to engage as little as possible with insurance, but they found a way to help get people the cover they needed, and do it in a quick, more exciting way.
Category: Best Brand Extension/Innovation and Financial & Banking
Company: IAG
Marketing Initiative: Tally
Marketing Partners: Colenso BBDO, PHD
Judges’ Comments: “Customer and brand insights clearly drove the strategy and campaign initiatives for IAG. They honed-in on a segment that was unloved and uninsured. The app innovatively connected with the target segment to make the consumer think about the value of their stuff and reconsider insurance.”
Finalists: (Financial & Banking) ASB (two times finalist)
This article was first published in the 2021 December/January issue of NZ Marketing magazine. You can subscribe to the magazine, here. Or read the other winner stories, here.
