Johnson Insurance, one of the country’s leading providers of home and auto insurance, has been providing services throughout Canada for more than 130 years. In spring 2013, the insurer set for itself a marketing challenge designed to help them find ways to optimize their marketing spend. The task was to test whether it was possible to increase awareness and consideration amongst their target on a community-by-community basis using only targeted marketing communications. Barrie, a community long served by Johnson but with low penetration, was selected as the market for this test.

A launch event at a major community festival brought real Johnson employees out into the community, helping to safeguard the citizens of Barrie. Locally and contextually relevant billboards, transit ads and lawn placards with useful tips and information for protecting their homes, automobiles and families were visible across the city. Over the summer, Johnson representatives conducted ‘random acts of service’ in the community such as helping community members cross streets and even set up for community movie screenings. Essentially, we gave Barrieites a real taste of the kind of dedicated service we provide with our home and auto insurance offerings.

Personal guidance and support, pillars of the Johnson brand promise, already lend themselves to the idea of a ‘hometown brand’, but with Johnson being headquartered thousands of miles away, the question became: how does an established brand gain the awareness and consideration levels of a ‘hometown’ brand – without any branch or staff presence? The answer was simple: make our marketing efforts an extension of the Johnson brand. We created a one-of-a-kind campaign that provided the personalized guidance and support that are hallmarks of the Johnson brand, while publicly taking “community spirit” to the next level.

The campaign launched June 29th and response greatly exceeded expectations, with an increase in aided awareness of 18% (that’s without TV), campaign recall of 20%, an increase in consideration of 19% and when we asked if they agree that “Johnson cares about their community”, 39% agreed. In addition, we saw a significant increase in policy signings and website inquiries vs. last year, directly attributed to the campaign. Johnson’s website saw a staggering 164% increase in traffic from the Barrie area, as well as a 59% increase in time on-site. Plus, these results can be 100% attributed to our campaign.