YCN- One brief that I do not want to do

Direct Line

Background

Direct Line is part of the RBS Insurance division of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group that specialises in selling insurance and other financial services over the phone and internet. Today, we have more than four million customers, and sell a motor policy every single second of every working day. This is in addition to offering home, pet, travel, life and critical illness insurance. We’ve grown enormously since 1985.

Direct Line was the first telephone insurer in the UK when launched in 1985, and soon became the UK’s largest provider of motor vehicle insurance. Direct Line is particularly known in the UK for its distinctive logo, a red telephone on wheels, which is used extensively in advertising. This has evolved and in recent years as the web grows this has been accompanied by a mouse to reflect changes in purchasing habits through the internet.

In a 2009 animated advert, the phone and mouse appeared together, Stephen Fry provided the voice of the phone and Paul Merton did the voice work of the mouse. More recently the voices of Griff Rhys Jones and Felicity Kendall were introduced. The creative is likely to evolve and change in order to maintain cut through in such a cluttered, fast paced advertising industry

The Creative Challenge

We need Direct Line to be at the top of a consumer’s consideration when looking for insurance. How can we encourage people to come direct when their default behaviour is to go to a price comparison website?

Considerations

• People are utterly cynical about insurance companies.
• There is very little differentiation in the marketplace – Direct Line see the need to make a virtue out of doing the norms people expect from an insurer.
• Consumers' default behaviour when buying insurance is to visit at least 2 price comparison sites (PCWs). Savvy people make their choice by gaining enough information to rationalise their choice.
• Direct Line is a direct insurer and does not appear on PCW sites. We encourage customers to come direct to get our best deal, as well as using PCWs. The savvy customer will look at all credible options before making a purchase decision.

What we know about PCWs, (e.g go compare / compare the market / money supermarket)

• The price you see is not always the final quote you get.
• Most people will usually visit more than one PCW indicating people don’t always trust that price as final or the best quote.
• Getting a quote can take a long time if you are having to visit more than one and input your details each time.

What we offer

Unlike some other insurers, Direct Line strives to provide:

1. Open and honest help and advice.
2. Clear offers, not hidden in clever promotional language.
3. Clear, simple explanations in Plain English (fair and uncomplicated).
4. Clear layout of information.
5. Help when help is most needed.

We are clear about what we offer and the service customers benefit from.

Media

Your ideas and creative concepts can be product focussed for Home insurance or Motor insurance or generic brand ads. Feel free to demonstrate your thinking in any medium, or combination of media, that you wish. If you focus on one specific medium do bear in mind that your idea must be able to work in others too, so it needs to be clear how this will work. A focus on how this would be delivered in the digital / social media space would be of particular interest but not mandatory.

Target Consumer

Mass Market with a heartland of two segments:

1. Ages 36-45 Parents of school age children comfortably well off.
2. Ages 46-55 Parents of older children who are at a settled stage of life.

Brand promise and personality

Our brand is perceived as:

• Straight talking
• Established
• Trusted
• We tirelessly challenge the status quo to get the best for our customers.
• We are a well-established market leader, easy to deal with and we deliver on our promises.

Personality

Competitive – strive to provide the best combination of price and quality cover.

Measuring Success

We need to make sure we are spending money in the right places, so it is important that we can measure success where possible. This should be a consideration and the detail on how we can do this included in your submission.