Humour isn’t always synonymous with car insurance, but it’s an approach that Belairdirect has put to good use in a new pre roll campaign showcasing the insurer’s quick quote system.
The online tool can deliver a customer quote in three minutes—a feat the Quebec-based insurer is trumpeting with a pair of punchy commercials.
The approach seems to be paying off: Since the campaign launched on July 13, the slapstick clips have racked up an impressive number (around 1 million combined) of plays on YouTube.
“It’s just another confirmation that we’re doing the right thing, and I think that our customers appreciate it,” said Jason Patuano, director of communications at Belairdirect, in an interview with Marketing.
The ads use slapstick humour—along with the brand’s long-running spokesperson and a hapless actor testing his speed against a ferret and a garage door—to highlight the new quoting system’s ease of use.
“Humour has always been the tone we’ve used in our advertising. We want to tell our customers that it’s very simple to do business with Belairdirect, and I think there’s nothing better than humour to show that,” said Patuano.
The new pre-roll adds pick up the speed-focused theme—and the tone—of an April TV spot featuring Canadian track star Bruny Surin. While Patuano wouldn’t say if the 60-year-old company is spending more on marketing these days, he maintained that reaching customers online is vital.
“It’s not that we’ve changed our approach, it’s just that we are always looking for ways to reach our customers, where they are,” he said, crediting the campaign’s visibility to a “diversified approach” to advertising.
“You see us on TV, and you see us online,” he said. “We do whatever it takes to reach our customers, and we want to delight them with some pretty creative concepts.”
The campaign, running online as pre-roll spots, was developed alongside agency of record Sid Lee, which has been working with Belairdirect for a decade.
“They are a pretty good partner with us,” said Patuano, adding that the success of the new spots with viewers “shows how creative they are for our brand.”
Patuano added that humour is also a great way to reach prospective customers of all ages. Sure, while the clips carry enough punch to appeal to older viewers, the humour is certainly family friendly, too.
“I think it can appeal to very different demographics. The online world isn’t just a place where just younger people are. But if you’ve seen the clips, the people who are our ‘stars’ are more from the adult group.”
