An industry built on precision, probability, and advanced modeling. So why are insurance ads so terrible?
I think it is time we addressed the Emu in the room. Insurance is a $1.5 trillion industry built on the most sophisticated risk modeling known to man. It is a business of precision, probability, and genuine enterprise value.
So why does the industry advertise like it's embarrassed by all of that?
Enter the Mascot-Industrial Complex
Almost every major insurance brand has offered us their version of the spokes-mascot over the last 10 years, and they all should have let Geico just run away with the direction. Instead however, we as consumers reap the benefit of some of the least interesting advertising in circulation. Leading this pack is Liberty Mutual. Their flagship brand campaign is built around a flightless bird in sunglasses. The premise: a man and an emu who keep ending up in situations their insurance company wouldn't exactly endorse. The bird, to its credit, is the more responsible of the two. - Go Birds!
This isn't just forgettable. It's a confession. When a brand deploys an emu to sell liability coverage without the inclusion of any real consumer benefit, it's signaling something specific about how they view customers: We don't believe you think deeply about this. We don't believe you make this choice based on the benefit, brand recall is all that matters.
It is an admission, in 30-second increments, that they have nothing of substance to say about their own value proposition.
Or Get Sucked into the Celebrity Vacuum
Cure Auto managed to secure Saquon Barkley, a generational athlete with genuine gravitas, and used the opportunity to put him in a mock press conference delivering what reads like a script written during hair and makeup.
This is the marketing equivalent of buying a Ferrari to haul gravel. They have the proof (the celebrity), but none of the value. The implicit message to consumers: we know this is dumb. You know this is dumb. But look, a football player.
The Real Problem Isn't the Emu or the Celebrity Endorsement
These campaigns are comfortable for brands because they're safe, and easy for agencies because they require very little heavy lifting. No one has to articulate why one policy is more defensible than another. No one has to make a real argument. Just an attempt at a cheap joke, an annoying jingle, and a brief that no one will object to.
When you optimize for "no one will object," you also optimize for "no one will notice."
That's not a marketing strategy. The insurance industry is so strategic and sophisticated, they continue to grow in spite of their advertising.
The Door is Open, Take the Opportunity
The most dangerous thing a brand can do in a commoditized market is be ignorable. It is even worse to be annoying. Right now, it feels like the entire insurance category is competing to be the least objectionable version of the same thing.
The gap is real and it's wide. Consumers aren't incapable of understanding a sophisticated value proposition, it's just that they're rarely offered one. The brands that decide to bring a little more substance and truth, to talk about the actual structure of their protection rather than the distraction of their mascot, will see the benefit. And they will set a new standard for the industry.
Craft compounds. Cheap humor doesn't. The brands that move from manufactured jokes toward made stories, real people, real risk, real stakes, will still be standing when the emu is long forgotten.
The question isn't whether insurance advertising needs to evolve. It's which brand decides to go first. Until then, we are stuck with CaNOOlies and LasaGna.