Note: This story was updated May 31 at 13:23
With its campaign for Desjardins‘ new Ajusto car insurance, Montreal agency LG2 confronted a difficult challenge: marketing a technology so new, most consumers haven’t even thought about the problem it’s trying to solve.
So LG2 and Desjardins launched an ambitious cross-platform campaign that uses TV and radio to drive interest in the product and digital media to provide a detailed explanation of how it works.
Launched this month in Ontario and Quebec, Ajusto is the first usage-based car insurance (UBI) program offered by a major insurer in Ontario (Indutrial Alliance Auto and Home Insurance offers a similar product in Quebec). Ajusto modifies drivers’ insurance premiums based on their actual driving habits using data from a small device installed in the client’s car. What that means for consumers: safe driving equals savings.
“We wanted the campaign to focus on the fact that this is the first insurance product that gives people individual control over how much they can save on their insurance,” said Stuart MacMillan, who worked with LG2’s creative director Marc Fortin on the Ontario campaign. “They’re not depending on the performance of all the people in their demographic, or actuarial tables. This is really something that you control individually.”
The concept is designed to be understood in French and English and highlights the driver’s personal control over insurance costs. The logo is the recognizable Desjardins’ green, and thins out from left to right to visually suggest adjustable savings.
Working on multiple platforms allowed the campaign “to take people on a journey, where at each level you discover a bit more about the product,” MacMillan said. “With media like TV and radio, you can tell a little bit of the story and generate personality that you want to inject into the brand, but it’s really all about getting them onto the website where they can discover the tutorials and testimonials from people who’ve tested the product.”
The website LG2 designed also includes a two-minute explainer video on how Ajusto works and a simulator where drivers can see how much Ajusto would save them.
“There really were a lot of technical things that needed to be explained,” MacMillan said. “So we wanted to keep it as honest and straightforward as possible, so that people understood the advantages of it, without scaring them with too much technical jargon.”
The biggest challenge, he said, was that consumers’ lack of familiarity with the product might make them feel intimidated or skeptical. Not only does installing a telematics device in your car seem complicated, but do you really want your auto insurer having hard data on your driving habits?
Denis Côté, Desjardins’ vice-president of marketing, said the product itself is designed to allay those fears. Rather than being a “pay-as-you-drive” insurance product that penalizes bad driving with higher premiums, Ajusto is intended to strictly be a savings program that offers a percent rebate calculated by your driving data. The savings rate is based on three aspects of driving: mileage, frequency of hard braking and acceleration, and time of day driven. By performing well in these categories, the driver can earn a rebate of up to 25%.
“Worst case scenario is a 0% [rebate],” said Côté. But the company believes that outcome is unlikely: in a four-month pilot study with 200 Desjardins employees in Ontario and Quebec, drivers had an average discount rate of 12%.
In TV and radio commercials, the rebate feature is summed up with the oft-repeated, “You can only save with Ajusto.”
UBI systems like Ajusto weren’t viable in the past because of the expense of producing telematics devices and the complexity of using them. Aviva trialed a UBI as far back as 2005, but it relied on the driver physically uploading telematics data to a computer and voluntarily sending it to the company, which turned out to be overly complicated.
Côté said the technology has come a long way since then. Ajusto allows a driver to see their savings rate change each month by logging into a user dashboard on the site, he explained.
Correction: This story originally stated Adjusto was the first usage-based car insurance program offered by a major insurer in Canada. This is not the case. The story has been updated to reflect this new information. Marketing regrets the error.
