Insurance is a very competitive, overcrowded category in the US, with major competitors outspending Liberty Mutual Insurance by a third. So the primary objective was to drive brand memorability and unaided brand awareness. On top of that, Liberty Mutual wanted to target 18-to-25-year-olds who either are starting to consider getting home/car insurance or, more commonly, aren’t considering insurance at all. While Liberty Mutual’s usual media strategy consisted solely of broadcast TV, we knew we’d need to come up with something fresh and unexpected to reach this young target audience.

In December 2021 the hotly anticipated Spider-Man: No Way Home was about to be released.

With every superhero movie, one thing is always clear: epic battles come with excessive property damage. With our young target audience being avid fans of the Spider-Man franchise, we had an idea: spread the news that when villains strike, Liberty Mutual Insurance protects. To do this, we partnered with the screenwriters of the destruction-filled Spider-Man film and created a real-life version of the movie’s infamous newspaper, the Daily Bugle. We filled it with articles about the impending damage occurring within the movie’s storyline and wove in the need for insurance throughout. To launch it, we transformed one of NYC’s newsstands into a Daily Bugle outlet for one day only.

Our strategy was to promote insurance in the context of villain-related destruction to make this typically boring topic relevant to our young target audience. Beyond making our own media channel of a Daily Bugle newspaper and newsstand, we had no media dollars to amplify our activation. So for zero spend, we got popular Spider-Man-fan accounts on social media to help tease images of our newsstand, and we never revealed the exact location of it to drive further intrigue. We also planned for our activation to launch just six days before the premiere of Spider-Man: No Way Home, ensuring that fans were at fever pitch when our Daily Bugle pop-up appeared in NYC.

To achieve authenticity and total accuracy within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Spidey fans are a detail-oriented bunch), we partnered with the screenwriters of the upcoming film to create our real-life Daily Bugle. Together we meticulously wrote articles and content that tapped into the movie’s impending drama and plotted damage—and wove in the need for insurance throughout. From the classifieds to the business section and everything in between.

We also included a tip line that people could call to report Spidey-related “damage.” This made people feel like Liberty Mutual was giving them an exclusive and immersive experience.

We launched our newspaper from a Daily Bugle–themed newsstand, manned by a charismatic newsie. This one-day pop-up created a visual spectacle in the streets of NYC that fans and passersby couldn’t ignore. We intentionally handed out just 5,000 copies to strike a balance between generating chatter and keeping the experience special.

Thousands of people hunted our event down, and we sold out of papers within a few hours. Those who missed out rushed to eBay and bid up to $1,199 to buy our paper secondhand.

Within 24 hours we achieved a PR reach of 283.7 million and a social reach of over 40 million, and we received 17,300+ calls to the Spider-Man tip line, with over 30% of people mentioning a need for Liberty Mutual Insurance in their recordings. Time Out magazine also named our event a top thing to do in NYC.

The best result? People saw Liberty Mutual as the hero of the day. On Reddit alone brand mentions increased by 250%, and Liberty Mutual’s share of voice in the insurance category increased by 153%.

All in all, the event perfectly achieved Liberty Mutual’s primary objective of driving brand memorability and unaided brand awareness among a young, hard-to-reach audience.