The most disastrous campaign ever

In a cluttered market with a focus on performance marketing, Hiscox’s shift to lower funnel customer acquisition had initially supported short-term sales, but at the expense of long-term brand building and business growth.
Over three years, cautious and conservative communications contributed to diminishing brand metrics and increased costs, prompting a need for strategic reversal.

Hiscox needed to regain its mojo, to proudly declare its resurgence, whilst increasing awareness and sales. But in a low-interest and highly competitive market where standard activity can be easily ignored, how could Hiscox make itself unmissable despite not having the lofty budgets of big-name high street insurers?

We uncovered two critical insights: despite previous assumptions, there was a 91% correlation between Hiscox’s customers and its competitors in both their attitudes and behaviours. Alongside this, our research uncovered that risk awareness was the key barrier stopping businesses from getting insured.

Collaborating with Uncommon Creative Studio, we launched a fame-building campaign targeting the small business insurance market with unmissable ads, using contextually relevant mistakes to link in with our insights that would jolt business owners into action.

We orchestrated the UK’s largest special build OOH campaign and the Metro featured our bespoke cover wrap with a shockingly blank front page. We took over WeTransfer for multiple days, highlighting the risk of sharing confidential info, as well as dominating screens at WeWork locations nationwide for months.

After the first year we’ve seen an increase in unaided brand awareness, an increase in brand keyword searches and a growth in sales, leading to Hiscox’s highest-ever annual profit and boosting internal morale, with staff citing it as a source of pride. Alongside this, the campaign has been reported by the likes of City AM, Insurance Age and Insurance Post, all of whom reference the impact of this brand campaign.