An increasing problem, that insurance company If wanted to find a solution to, is that stressed-out drivers don’t adhere to speed limitations near schools and kindergartens, which consequently leads to more car accidents involving children. Based on the insight that people are programmed to react to children’s voices, we created a voice navigation app – Slow Down GPS – where the navigation voice switches to a child’s voice when users drive in child-dense areas, in order to create an immediate response.
Objectives: A) Raise awareness of the problem, i.e. get the message across and get people and media to talk about the problem. B) Generate more liking towards If as a brand, since research shows that liking is the most instrumental aspect when choosing insurance.
Since insurance rarely catches people’s interest our strategy was to talk about something that truly matters to people, especially in the target audience, which has a high representation of parents and drivers. We know from research that brand liking is the most instrumental factor when choosing insurance company, our solution was supposed to create a wide impact in terms of liking and interest in the brand. Consequently, PR was an integral part of the campaign and the goal from this perspective was to generate coverage both in broadcast media and a wide spread in digital media.
The Brief
First of all, we wanted to raise awareness of the problem regarding drivers speeding near schools and kindergartens. I.e. get people and media to talk about the problem and about If Insurance’s solution. From a PR perspective, our goal was to generate PR both in terms of broadcast media and digital/social media.
Also, the goal was to generate higher liking towards If as a brand, since liking is the most instrumental aspect when choosing insurance.
Research was conducted foremost for the purpose of creating the most relevant tool as possible, based on human behavior research, traffic research and modern technology.
Execution
People not adhering to speed limits in child-dense areas such as near schools and kindergartens are an increasing problem; 65% of Scandinavians drive too fast in these areas. Our solution, the app Slow Down GPS, a voice navigation app where the navigation voice switches to a child’s voice when users drive in child-dense areas, became a tool both for partly solving this problem, but also as a means for generating a discussion about If.
PR was an absolute central aspect of the campaign. Campaign launch was chosen to the time of school start after summer holidays. Through crowdsourcing on If’s website, people were also able to suggest more locations where the child’s voice should switch on.
- The story spread to 164 countries and earned a potential reach of 87,500,000 people.
– After launch Slow Down GPS became the second most downloaded navigation app in Scandinavia.
– 20,000 people got engaged and contributed during the first two weeks with local knowledge of additional child-dense areas, a strong indicator of involvement with the message and the app.
– Brand liking: +46% over target. The goal was to generate a high brand liking among 50% of the target audience (i.e. normally achieved by well-performing campaigns for If). The outcome was that 73% reported a high brand liking as an effect of the campaign. An all time high for If.
– This idea has been selected for a research program on traffic safety at The Swedish National Road and Transport Institute, creating possible further spread of the app and of the message. This research could prove what professors are already convinced of; that the Slow Down GPS has a direct effect on drivers’ behavior.
The Strategy
The strategy was to find a topic that is highly relevant to our target audience (mainly people 25-55, often with kids living at home and often with at least one car within the family). As stated above, insurance is a subject that in and of itself is boring to people, and we also know that people don't really care about product specifics when it comes to insurance - they buy from the ones they have the best gut feeling about.
The fact is also that people buy insurance very seldom, only once every seventh year, which means you have to be high on the consideration list once the “buying window” opens.
So, when we decided to focus on the problem of speeding near schools (a topic relevant to this audience), we also set out to create a more immediate relationship between If and people, to increase likelihood of being chosen.