Each month we provide insight into the creative and media strategies behind the campaigns of industry-leading advertisers, with estimated costs per web visit results provided by our data scientists utilising sources including Hitwise, Nielsen and BARB.
In the latest Adquirer, we look at three different life insurance advertisers, each with their own approach to convincing the viewer of the superiority of their product in order to trigger an immediate response. We explore the similarities and differences in their media deployment and creatives, as well as the differing calls to action in play.
Beagle Street’s ad cuts straight to the point, explaining what life insurance is for through the eyes of a young family and in particular the thoughtful father: to cover the mortgage, bills and look after your family once you’re gone. It aims to connect to the heart of a family’s needs and concerns and related safety measures, thinking about how one can help their loved ones after they’ve passed.
Not only is the motivation behind life insurance covered, but the setup process is also clearly visualised through the father’s phone call to Beagle Street, as well as the cost and cover amounts.
In what is deemed an industry norm, Beagle Street only used 60-second spots in 2017, allowing them plenty of time to get the message across. The key points of life insurance can potentially be covered in a shorter spot length, so perhaps the emotive messaging warranted the extra time. That said, would testing shorter lengths provide a more cost-efficient blended campaign?
From 14 seconds in, their URL and phone number are clearly displayed on the screen, brought to the fore in the end frame in a bright and uncluttered fashion. Furthermore, their estimated cost per website visit of £48.46 is also in the bracket of acceptability, considering the higher long-term value of customers in the insurance sector. All seems perfect, right? Perhaps. But delving a little deeper did present an interesting creative approach to the campaign…
Instead of the 10-15 different creatives (film numbers), we would usually see an advertiser utilise over a 12 month period, Beagle Street deployed 402 film numbers in the whole of 2017. 402!
Interestingly, only two actual ads are used, with the main differentiating factor across the range being the 0800 phone number shown in the ad, seemingly as a way for Beagle Street to track calls and match them back to specific spots. With the advent and evolution of campaign measurement tools – such as our proprietary ARMalytics® suite – the same measurement capabilities exist without the need for such an abundance of different ads, without even exploring the no-doubt mounting costs of submitting each version to the sales houses. As always, there may well be a valid reason for this strategy, however, it can safely be assumed that there is a technological answer to the theory.
