‘I’ve never had a response like it’: Allianz’s repositioning one month on

“In my entire 25 years in this industry, I have never had a response like it.”

That’s Allianz marketing boss Laura Halbert on her brand’s recent repositioning. It’s a sentiment echoed by Howatson + Co boss Chris Howatson.

When she joined the insurance brand 18 months ago, Halbert was tasked with taking it into its next chapter of growth. While the brand had good awareness and good consideration, thanks to its previous brand platform ‘Ahhh’, there was a challenge in first-choice preference.

‘Ahhh’ Allianz

In order to beat the challenge, Halbert knew it was time to build a new, strong, more distinctive brand.

“What was really funny was from the outside, when I looked at Allianz, it was definitely a global brand. It felt strong, and trusted, but it didn’t really stand for anything specifically,” she tells Mumbrella. “But when I was inside the organisation, it was very clear from day one, even throughout my interview process, that it was a deeply interesting and distinctive organisation, it just hadn’t come out through the comms yet.”

Over the course of eight months, Halbert and Allianz’s creative agency Howatson + Co began talking to customers, frontline staff, the board, and “anyone and everyone” who was at the core of the brand. A single concept kept rising to the surface: “care”.

It was a no-brainer for Halbert to make this the centrepiece of a repositioning.

Last month, the insurance brand unveiled ‘Care You Can Count On’ — the new brand promise and platform set to Avril Lavigne’s 2002 classic ballad ‘I’m With You’. Designed to provide Australians with “clarity, confidence, and care”, it hoped to simply bring to life what was “baked into the company”.

The campaign is led by a hero film, and supported by executions across cinema, Youtube, digital, and social channels. Outdoor executions have also just begun to roll out. Media planning and buying was handled by Allianz’s media partner, Wavemaker.

“It was a long process, but one that was really important because we wanted to build a positioning from the core that’s going to stick for a long time. What we know for sure is that no matter how trusted you are, customers are still really worried at the end of the day around whether their insurance brand is going to be there for them when they need it most. So that’s what we tapped into,” Halbert says.

For Howatson + Co, producing this vision was a challenge at first, according to Howatson.

“Laura said to us, ‘this has to be one big emotional promise’,” he tells Mumbrella. “She told us ‘it’s clearly in care, people are clearly searching for reassurance, so build a platform that tells that in the strongest way’. And for us as an agency, that was quite a brief. So there was definitely a challenge because of the freedom.”

The OOH has begun to roll out

But when the finch and eagle storyline dropped (see video above), “it was just so obvious”. Not only for the fact that an eagle is a historic brand asset, but for the “perfect” manifestation of care.

The way everything “clicked into place” went beyond the agency and marketing team. When it was presented to Allianz’s CEO, Richard Feledy, Halbert says there was no hesitation.

Howatson says: “When Laura first told me it was approved, she’d come straight out of a meeting with her CEO and simply sent me a text with that emoji of the flying eagle. We just knew it worked.”

Just over a month in, the bosses say they have never seen such a response to a campaign in their respective 25-year careers.

“No doubt I’ve had some great partnerships and done some great work with great teams, but we have literally had thousands of social media messages,” Halbert tells Mumbrella. “We’ve even been getting letters, actual physical written letters from members of the public writing to say thank you.

“It’s just incredible.”

@lachlancrane #australia #tv #commercial #allianz ♬ I’m with You – Avril Lavigne

Social media blew up in the campaign’s first days in market, with videos and photos of people crying from the ad, while some called Avril Lavigne an “insurance icon”.

Halbert says people have even been calling Allianz’s call centre or using the ‘complaint’ section of the website to send compliments and say thank you.

“And it’s not just because it’s an amazing ad, I think we just tapped into something that people want to feel right now. Like people are thanking us for making them feel good.”

It’s not just humans reacting this way.

“It’s really funny, we didn’t realise it. But dogs and cats that can see TVs are reacting like crazy,” Halbert says. “We’ve gotten so many videos of people’s dogs barking and trying to eat their TVs being sent in. We didn’t see that coming at all. It’s been extraordinary.”

A dog belonging to a family member of this author loves the ad

Allianz was able to collate some initial post-campaign data just two weeks in, and the numbers are good.

According to the data, people who view the ad are 150% more likely to go on and search “Allianz”.

In ad recall testing, awareness was up 15 points compared to the multi-category norms (benchmarks established across different product or service categories), while branding was 16 points higher. Comprehension was up 8 points, as was consideration.

“It’s blown the lights off not just our targets but our expectations of what’s possible too,” Halbert says.

So much so, “chapters two and three” of the platform have already been briefed.

Howatson stresses that these numbers come down to the messaging and nothing else.

“We are spending reasonably and modestly,” he says. “It’s not like we’ve changed anything else in the mix as well.”

Avril Lavigne is apparently reaping the rewards too. ‘I’m With You’ has been high on the Shazam charts since the hero film came out last month. As of publication, the song is #35 in the Sydney Top 50 chart.

The Shazam charts

“We’re bringing Avril back, which we’re more than happy to do,” Howatson says.

“One thing we’ve heard from Sony Music is that Avril is touring next year, and she’s now considering doing more Australian stops as a result of the popularity.”

Allianz’s push for care has also already gone beyond this initial campaign. Last month, it introduced an initiative with Spotify that encourages safer driving using the power of music.

Research commissioned by the insurance brand found that one in three (32%) Aussie drivers think music affects their driving. Of them, a further one in three (33%) reported decreased concentration. 28% said that the pace or tempo of a song makes them drive faster. Songs over 120 beats per minute (BPM) were found to have the worst impact on decision-making while behind the wheel, including speed, alertness, and reaction time.

While ‘I’m With You’ wouldn’t make the cut, at 152 BPM, Halbert says this initiative is a great proof point that ties in nicely with the repositioning.

“It’s just another demonstration that we care so deeply about how people drive their cars, wanting them to get home safe… So whatever we can do to prevent things from occurring, and to engage with people, and to demonstrate care, we will do.”

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