For almost ten years, the face of the brand has been their obscure mascot ‘Simon the Sloth’ – a lethargic, animated character who, not surprisingly, had lost relevance. We were tasked with reinvigorating the brand for New Zealanders aged between 25 – 35; a demographic with an ever-increasing responsibility to insure themselves for the benefit of their dependents. The problem is, they view death as a distant, irrelevant issue.
We needed to revive the brand for those who view death as a distant issue. So, we killed their mascot.
As a real-time demonstration of the unpredictability of life, and the significant benefits of life insurance, we pushed Simon off a cliff on ‘live’ TV. As intended, this whipped up a social media ‘WTF’ storm. The following day, we published a full-page obituary in the dailies, announcing that Simon had died, but failed to specify his life insurance beneficiaries. Kiwis who ‘knew’ Simon were then invited to share stories about their relationship, in order to claim a slice of the pay-out.
