Stella Insurance was founded to change the game for women - in the insurance sector, in other male-dominated industries and in broader society. The company is female-founded and run by a female leadership team. Stella’s products and customer experiences are designed to prioritise the needs of women (i.e. they offer domestic violence cover where many insurers don’t).

As a brand, Stella gets that challenging, thought-provoking comms are a powerful way to spread their message. The core of the brief was to celebrate Stella’s values, to get people talking about the brand and considering switching their policies to Stella, while using their platform to help balance society’s gender biases. The objectives were to get more traffic to the Stella site and sell more policies, while giving a platform to inspiring women, sparking debate, becoming known for their passionate stance on gender equality and making a dent on culture.

We celebrated female courage, smarts and audacity by showing a diverse range of awesome women across a range of professional and societal contexts. Including a woman fleeing domestic abuse, a working mum, a motocross champion, a woman going through IVF, an amputee and a woman who’s had a double mastectomy. The idea was to highlight feats of everyday boldness and bravery and tie them to the catchy, provocative phrase ‘IT TAKES BOOBS’.

Our approach was to highlight Stella’s stance on gender equality, and demonstrate our credentials beyond price. To create a passionate, loyal customer base who not only buy Stella products, but also feel even more empowered to call for equality in society.

We targeted all women of driving age. Specifically:

• Young single females: 25-35, single, working.

• ‘Establishing a family’ females: 30-45, generally in a relationship, young family.

• ‘Mature family’ female: 40-60, generally in a relationship, mature family, generally higher income bracket, working part-time.

Research showed that modern Australian women are hardworking, well-educated (40% have a Bachelor Degree or Higher Degree) and passionate about social causes. They are 12% more likely to be loyal to brands that support worthy causes – and 66% would switch from a product they typically buy, to a product from a purpose-driven company. This goes up to 91% when Millennials were asked.

The campaign ran in Australia in 2023 and will run in the UK in 2024. It runs across a full range of media, from 60- and 30-second films for TV and BVOD, 15-second cutdowns and an individual 6-second cutdown for each featured woman. The campaign also included full-page press ads which ran in Marie Claire magazine, radio, and a wide range of OOH executions including full bus-sides and huge digital superscreens at Westfield shopping centres. It extended to a popular podcast, presented by Tarla Lambert, which shines a light on stories of female trailblazers who embody courage, grit and resilience from all walks of life.

239% increase in website traffic year-on-year.

43% increase in policies sold year-on-year.

89.5% increased in quotes requested year-on-year.

Anecdotally, ‘IT TAKES BOOBS’ often mentioned in quote requests/interactions online.

Overwhelming response online/in social media with countless notes/comments from women who feel seen/empowered by the campaign.

The campaign is polarising: high volume of comments online - mostly from men - complaining about the campaign. Many of these are abusive but the Stella team have been trained in how to de-escalate diplomatically.

Anecdotally, massive energy and positivity around ‘IT TAKES BOOBS’ when the Stella founder and leadership team attend meetings, conferences, pitches, etc.