Thinkerbell

Client: NRMA Insurance
Product: Car Insurance
Title: Protect What's Precious
Media: PR
Country: Australia
Date Of Campaign: 8th December 2019

Background: Trust is the number one issue facing the insurance sector in Australia. Given this, the brief from NRMA Insurance was to develop a Christmas campaign that positioned the brand as the most trusted, empathetic and talked about in Australia. Christmas is the most dangerous time on Australian roads. But it’s also the most cluttered with road safety messaging. NRMA Insurance needed something that would force drivers to take more care, and cut through.The answer: A dessert called pavlova, enjoyed at Christmas.Thinkerbell was asked to take the Christmas ad, featuring a woman carefully driving a pavlova to a Christmas lunch and generate earned media, whilst anchoring NRMA Insurance at the heart of the road safety message during the cluttered Christmas period.

Idea: To leverage NRMA Insurance’s new christmas TV campaign, we conducted an experiment to see if people took more care driving with a pavlova in their car, or their kids.With YouGov Galaxy the two-part social experiment involved a survey and a driving experiment:1,059 Australian drivers were surveyed on their attitudes to driving and how their driving changed when caring a child vs. a pavlovaTwenty participants took part in the driving experiment that took place over eight days, examining how they drove alone, with a child and with a pavlova (tracking their actual driving behaviours with sensors and accelerometers put their cars.The two pieces of research would demonstrate a discrepancy; the quantitative data revealing how people perceive they drive and the experiment showing the reality of their driving behaviours. The driving experiment found that 95% of drivers recorded a significant improvement in their driving when transporting a pavlova. This was astounding, people took more care with a pav than a child!We packaged up our key research findings and secured an exclusive across the News Corp and Channel 10 News. The media package included research results, video case study, the NRMA Insurance Christmas TVC and interviews with NRMA Insurance spokesperson, Sally Kiernan and consumer psychologist, Adrian Camilleri. The media package included research results, video case study, the NRMA Insurance Christmas TVC and interviews with NRMA Insurance spokesperson.We then widely distributed the results of the study, securing talkback radio interviews with Sally and Adrian across the country.

Results: The study dominated news sites over a busy Christmas news period of impeachments, Brexit, bushfires and UK election results. However, despite this, we had a massive media uptake, including:- A News Corp network exclusive and Channel 10 News 3-minute story ran;- In just two days, 15.1 million impressions were generated against a target audience reach of 4 million;- 111 pieces secured to date against a KPI of 24 pieces, all with full NRMA Insurance branding.Specific results include: - 20 talkback radio stories, 45 pieces across major metro mastheads (print and online) and a panel discussion on Channel 9 TODAY;- Three TV pieces ran on Channel 10 News, which featured the TVC, research case study video and a panel debate on driving behaviour; - Over 25 radio station mentions as well as inclusions on their online platforms; andFurther people knew the campaign was created by NRMA Insurance:- 100% of the coverage mentioned NRMA, 90% mentioned NRMA Insurance- 100% positive-neutral sentiment / key messages- 77% featured commentary from one of our campaign spokespeople. During Australia’s busiest time in the media and on our roads, we used Australia’s most iconic dessert, the pavlova, as an unexpected vehicle to raise awareness around the importance of driving safely and protecting what’s precious this Christmas.