For well over a century, NJM Insurance has built a reputation for going above and beyond for their policyholders. As they continued to expand into new markets, NJM’s business lines division needed to build awareness, reach more businesses, and drive new leads. That’s where we came in.
We had to show businesses in these new markets how NJM continually surprises their customers by going that extra mile when it comes to service and claims experience. Most importantly, we had to make businessowners remember that when the unexpected happens, NJM is there. Why? Because NJM is “more than you’d expect from business insurance.” And from that — a campaign was born.
In such a competitive and over-saturated category, we knew that we had to stand out and plant our metaphorical flag in these new markets. We engaged in qualitative and quantitative research with business decision makers and found that they were increasingly disappointed with their insurance, and their expectations of service had been somewhat diminished. We knew that NJM regularly went “above and beyond” for their customers by providing them with award-winning service, and from there, we developed our big idea of NJM being “more than you’d expect from business insurance.”
We wanted a campaign that not only reflected the most powerful reason to believe in NJM, but a campaign that was, essentially, more than you’d expect from a business insurance commercial. Intensive competitive research showed us that while humor was often used in personal insurance lines marketing, it was rarely used for business lines. We then decided to leverage humor as our differentiator, and we jumped in head first. By taking our cue from the slapstick and cliché jokes of classic animation, we crafted a campaign that centered on the idea of expectations — more specifically, defying expectations.
It's the reversal of the expected outcome in any given situation that leads to great comedy, and we used this reversal to drive home our key message. We took timeless comedic bits (like slipping on a banana peel) and used the familiarity of trope to trick our audience into thinking they knew what was going to happen. Then, we pulled the rug out from under them, presented a different result, and proved that the unexpected can happen at any moment. Especially in business.
In “Bull,” we relied on the familiarity of the old idiom, “a bull in a China shop.” We created a fictional China shop (one with NJM business insurance, of course) and then we threw an actual bull into the mix. Drawing our inspiration from old Spaghetti-Westerns, we shot an actual bull entering a fictional China shop in the style of a showdown. We built the tension Sergio Leone- style, and just when everyone thinks the bull is going to wreak havoc in the artisan establishment, the unexpected happens: a hanging light fixture snaps from its chain, swings down, and crashes into the merchandise. With all the China ruined, the bull leaves the shop, and the owners immediately call NJM.
Here, the reversal of expectations does exactly what we expected: it entertains and explains. The comedy hooks our target audience, and our double-edged sword of messaging shows that when unexpected things happen, NJM is the insurance provider that goes above and beyond for their policyholders. Working with a real, 2,000-pound bull proved to be easier than working with most actors, and getting to destroy a truckload of fine China was easily the highlight of many of our careers.
By working closely with NJM, we were able to craft an effective and meaningful campaign together. On our end, we had to learn about the different types of businesses that NJM was targeting, and we tried to hone our messaging and imagery toward those specific demographics and fields. The fictional claims in our campaign align with actual claims that NJM would cover and has covered, and we created a fake business of the same size and similar industry as the markets they were going after.
The humor and outrageous scenario of this campaign provided exactly the amount of breakthrough that we hoped would make us stand out in this category. But, no matter how big the elements are in this spot, it is still grounded in well-researched reality that helps to fortify our key messaging and sell our product with authenticity.
In the end, we created an entertaining, engaging, and impactful campaign, but our greatest success came with simultaneously creating work that met all of our client’s needs while still being something that we’re proud of. And, in this business, we would expect nothing less.
