The insurance market is as competitive as it has ever been, with brands competing fiercely for their market share.
Direct Line have refocused their marketing and advertising efforts over the last few months. Specifically, their ad campaign features Hollywood star Harvey Keitel reprising his famous Winston Wolf character from Tarantino’s classic film, Pulp Fiction. This effort replaces the well-known red phone on wheels that viewers may have been accustomed to.
Although one’s first impression may be this is out of leftfield slightly, YouGov BrandIndex data illustrates how the decision to go in this direction has had a positive effect on the brand’s perception among consumers.
YouGov’s Ad Awareness Metric measures whether or not a respondent has seen an advert by a particular company in the last two weeks. The campaign first launched around September, and reached a high of +28.7% among all respondents, and +33.6% among those who said they are either very likely, likely, or somewhat likely to purchase insurance.
More recently, with the re-launch of the campaign, we can see that Direct Line’s score has risen from +12.9% at the turn of the New Year to a high of +22.3% at the beginning of February. From this, we can assert that the advert has proved memorable on both occasions the campaign has been on our screens.
Another interesting angle to consider is how other metrics have improved along with the increase in Ad Awareness. Consumers have a wide range of choice surrounding insurance providers, so therefore value is key. Additionally a positive recommendation from a friend of colleague is often crucial is deciding to become a customer for a particular brand.
We do see significant improvements on both counts, particular at the same time as the adverts ran.
In the autumn, the recommend score reached a high of 8.1, while the value score saw a high of 8.4 in September.
For the value metric in the re-launch, the score has risen from +1.1 at the beginning of December to a high of +6.6 at the start of February. It is a similar story with the Recommend metric; this has seen a rise from +4.0 to +7.3 over the same time period.
We can deduce therefore that Direct Line’s campaigns, not just in the last months of the previous year, but at the beginning of this, have been working to shift perception among consumers. Of course, this is crucial in a fight back against the price comparison websites. Direct Line do not appear on such sites and therefore have had to come up with a new strategy to combat any damage this may have had in the past.
Image:PA
