The biggest source of satisfaction in our line of work is seeing brand strategy work show in the marketplace. And A recent highlight was seeing Metropolitan launch their new campaign, Number 1 Service for our Number 1s (1). Metropolitan is a leading insurance brand in South Africa, part of the Momentum Group. The brand has built a strong foundation, with over 125 years of serving South Africans, especially in funeral insurance. A key challenge is how to boost awareness with less marketing budget than some of its heavy spending competitors.
Below I look at some of the learning from this new campaign.
1.Rooted in Service Truths: product “sausage”
A lot of financial services communication in South Africa is heavy on emotion but lacks a clear, relevant functional benefit. So, it is great to see Metropolitan’s new campaign building on a simple yet powerful product truth: exceptional service. For years, the brand has set the benchmark for customer care in the South African insurance market, with consistent wins in the Ask Afrika Orange Index and South African Customer Satisfaction Index (SAcsi). Up to now the brand hasn’t really used these achievements as a major marketing tool. “For years, our clients have been in on a little secret that the rest of South Africa is discovering,” as the brand says on its website (2).
“Number 1 service for our Number 1s” captures the service promise in a distinctive, memorable way. This is backed up with some powerful product truths. First, 92% of valid claims are paid in a day. Second, funeral claims can be submitted via WhatsApp, with valid claims paid out within 4 hours. In addition to the time-saving benefit, this brand truth is also a powerful way of Metropolitan showing it is is an innovative, digitally savvy service provider.
2.Refreshing tone of voice: emotional “sizzle”
Much of the marketing for insurance brands, especially for funeral insurance, tends to have a sombre, serious tone. In arefreshing departure, Metropolitan’s new campaign brings warmth, approachability and even a sense of humour to the sector. The campaign embraces a lighter touch, with the Metropolitan spokesperson young, enthusiastic and energetic. The way the service delivery is shown has a touch of humour, such as throwing a dart at a map to show the location of a happy customer. Colloquial language is used, such as “our service story, no manga’manga business,” where “manga-manga business” means something shady or underhand. And the brand shows just how good its service is by saying,“That’s the type of service that will leave a Karen speechless.” Here, the brand taps into popular culture by using the term “Karen”, meaning an overly-demanding middle-class woman.
3. A Bold Use of Brand Assets: Distinctiveness
The way Metropolitan amplifies its distinctive brand assets should help the brand stand out in an over-crowed market. The campaign cleverly makes use of the brand’s blue colour, through the clothes of the spokesperson, the water cooler and the office design. Furthermore, as the film is shot in an imaginary Metropolitan office, there is plenty of opportunity for the brand name and logo to appear in a natural, unforced way. The film ends with the brand’s long-running slogan, Together We Can. This sums up well the idea of award winning service helping clients achieve their objectives.
Finally, there may be potential for the young spokesperson in the film to become a distinctive brand asset. The Direct Line insurance brand had many years of success using Harvey Keitel to reprise his role of Winston Wolf from the movie Pulp Fiction to drive distinctiveness, as we posted on here.
In conclusion, the new Metropolitan campaign is a good example of how to combine product sausage, emotional sizzle and distinctive brand assets to stand out and get noticed.
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