BACKGROUND

Since 2021, Partners Life has been on a mission to close the under-insurance gap in NZ.

From a communication perspective, this is articulated through the campaign platform ‘Plan ahead, to get life right’.

The previous iteration of this campaign platform sought to use famous nursery rhymes to encourage more NZers to consider their insurance needs.

For example, the story of Three Blind Mice was used to highlight the importance of planning ahead when it comes to income protection insurance.

CONTEXT

For the 2022 iteration of their campaign…

Partners Life sought to grow awareness and consideration of a product that New Zealanders are chronically under-insured against – Life Insurance.

Our research uncovered several barriers that made this a challenge:

1. Advertising wasn’t motivating us to act

When looking at triggers that motivate people to take out life insurance, traditional advertising ranks bottom of the list. [6]

2. You won’t consider life insurance if you don’t consider death.

Research [7] uncovered that NZers reluctance to engage with the category was driven by their reluctance to engage with death itself.

There was a darker downside to our ‘she’ll be right attitude’ – it led to the tendency to understate risk and avoid challenging issues.

And nothing is more confronting than death.

CREATIVE CHALLENGE

Turn a nation that is apathetic to life insurance into one that is actively engaged with it through Partners Life.

SOLUTION

Our approach was shaped by two key insights:

INSIGHT 1:

NEW ZEALANDERS CLAIM THEY DON’T WANT TO ENGAGE IN DEATH.

BUT THAT SIMPLY ISN’T TRUE.

In fact, NZers will happily consider and engage in death,…as long as it’s not their own.

True crime podcasts and murder mysteries are hugely popular genres in NZ. [8]

INSIGHT 2:

HINDSIGHT IS USELESS WHEN YOU ARE DEAD.

Hindsight is usually a powerful trigger when it comes to getting insurance more generally.[9]

For example, if you break your arm, it will prompt you to get health insurance. [9]

But when it comes to life insurance, hindsight is completely useless…

…because the sad truth is…you’re already dead.

This led to our strategy:

Dramatise that hindsight is useless when you’re dead in places

where Kiwis are already engaging with death.

EXECUTION

Introducing the…

‘Last Performance’

We created a life insurance campaign that masqueraded as a television series, where murdered characters wake from the dead at the end of the show (before the credits) to share their regrets about not getting life insurance.

We partnered with NZ’s most popular murder mystery show– The Brokenwood Mysteries to bring this to life.

Six episodes = six deaths = six perfect candidates to share why they regretted not having life insurance.

So, we united…

a media partner, 


a television production company,


actors,


crew,


and Partners Life

…to tell the most compelling life insurance story NZ had ever seen.