87% of Kiwis have their cars protected with insurance. But when it comes to our lives, a mere 28% of Kiwis are protected. We’re one of the most underinsured countries in the world.

To change the status quo of life insurance in New Zealand we needed to understand why people weren’t taking it out. Discovery revealed three barriers:

1. People hate thinking about dying.

2. New Zealanders are plagued by a “she’ll be right” attitude.

3. People hate ads. In fact, 66% of New Zealanders would rather do chores than watch an ad.

We then landed on a core insight that unlocked our strategy:

Hindsight is often the only way we realise the things we should have done, but didn’t.

While hindsight is great to understand the things we should have done, it’s a little bit different when the subject is life insurance. Because those affected by it are the dead’s people families or the dead themselves.

But that gave us the idea to use the dead to talk to New Zealand. But not just any old dead, but rather people New Zealander’s are willing and wanting to watch without even knowing they are watching an ad.

That’s how we came to use the dead characters in New Zealand’s highest rating murder mystery series, ‘The Brokenwood Mysteries’ to tell their audiences about the benefits of having life insurance.

With so many New Zealanders uninterested in life insurance, we targeted two key groups: 1. The Un-Insured – New Zealanders without any form of life insurance.

2. The Underinsured – Those with insurance but not the right level of protection.

But to change the status quo of life insurance in New Zealand we needed to understand why people weren’t taking it out. Discovery revealed three barriers:

1. People hate thinking about dying.

2. New Zealanders are plagued by a “she’ll be right” attitude.

3. People hate ads.

We then landed on a core insight that unlocked our strategy:

Hindsight is often the only way we realise the things we should have done, but didn’t.

Life insurance company, Partners Life, worked in conjunction with New Zealand’s highest rating murder mystery series, ‘The Brokenwood Mysteries.’ In every episode someone dies. And as a result, they end up in the morgue where their cause of death is determined. So, at the end of every episode, before the credits, we brought these murdered characters back from the dead.

They awoke to express their surprise, as well as to stress the importance of having life insurance, as they reflected on their lives and deaths. This message seamlessly integrated into the show as we used the same actors, same director, same crew and same sets. 45% of New Zealanders were reached by the campaign, as they reminded New Zealand that life isn’t scripted so plan ahead and ‘Get Life Right’ – the brand’s platform.

As a result of the campaign we saw:

135% Increase to Partners Life website across the campaign period.

75% Increase in direct leads to our financial advisors.

45% New Zealanders reached

26% brand awareness

New Zealand’s leading newspaper called it, ‘‘A clever example of how brands are using television more creatively.” Lance Hopkins, Head of Integration at TVNZ called it “A brilliant example of integrating brands around the TV platform.” And someone who believed it was part of the show complained to the Advertising Standards Association complainant saying, “I felt I had been tricked into watching this advertisement.” This claim was dismissed.