'Dogzilla' and doll houses delight the Hollard audience

'Dogzilla' in action...

As insurance is typically a ‘grudge purchase’, marketers and advertisers alike need to go back to the drawing board and push boundaries to find original ways to make their brands top-of-mind. Especially if you have just 30 seconds of TV airtime to get the message across.

One way of doing so is to incorporate the very latest technology into your advertising, to ensure it showcases something that’s never been seen before and truly stands out from the rest. Hollard did just that in its latest three-part campaign, which features 3D printing, extreme close-ups and an epic ‘action movie’ intro.

More than that, it touches on the quirk and sass that’s woven into the brand’s personality. If you’re thinking ‘that doesn’t sound like the typical dry, value-laden, voice-over heavy insurance ad’, you’re right. That’s because Hollard was born out of a belief that there is a better way to do insurance – and a better way to advertise its offering.

M&C Saatchi Abel was called upon in this regard, and its latest offering for Hollard is so cleverly done that it takes a while to register that you’re looking at a doll’s house being toyed with by a very enthusiastic dog, instead of a real house battered by a storm and facing certain disaster.

Tarnee Watts, creative group head at M&C Saatchi says insurance shouldn’t just be about what can go wrong but also what can go right, and feels the ad demonstrates in a fun way that Hollard insures all the stuff you love, even ones that go ‘woof’ and are playfully dubbed ‘Godzilla’.

Of course there’s a fair share of ‘smoke and mirrors’ involved too, as I learned from the ‘making of/behind the scenes’ video embedded below:

Hollard’s chief marketing officer or ‘brand mama’ Heidi Brauer lets us in on more in this exclusive interview…

1. Share some insights into the Hollard/M&C Saatchi Abel working relationship.

Brauer: We make sprinkles together. In a category that is largely grudge purchase, with low touch and little differentiation (commodity, anyone?), we know our work is to continually challenge ourselves to find the sprinkles in a world of vanilla. We are co-parents of our brand, we know it as well as each other, we all understand the business of the business and the same things keep us awake at night... see our business TV ad!

2. Talk us through the Hollard brand personality and why a quirky advertising model is a good match for this.

Brauer: Hollard was a challenger brand before the term was coined. It was frank about the category before there even was a Frank in the category. We take what we do seriously, but not ourselves, and these things are truly and deeply who we are. This allows us to take a quirky and more light-hearted approach to our communication, an approach that isn’t about being funny, but is about touching topics that are often un-funny in a way that gets them talked about.

3. How can the more serious business industries liven up their advertising?

Brauer: Some industries (like financial services) are boring and grudge, but the bottom line is that you can’t be funny if your brand isn’t built for that. If you really and truly look at things from the customer’s point of view, then you will naturally add a warmth to your communication and that brings life.

4. Aha. Sticking with the topic of perspective, who was your target audience this time around, as implied in the tagline ‘from your house to your doll’s house’?

Brauer: Our previous Instagram-inspired outdoor and print campaign has been about ‘’if it’s worth sharing, it’s worth insuring” which was created to let people have a think about all the precious stuff they love and whether or not it’s insured – even their families. This new TV ad was created to build awareness of Hollard’s offerings in the car and home space, so anyone who has stuff they love is the target audience.

5. Many don’t even think of incorporating 3D printing into their campaigns as it’s seen as pricy and far too complex. Clearly that’s not the case…

Brauer: Our incredible creative team blew us away when they turned the story-board vision into two sets: one life-size, the other an exact miniature replica of every element of the house and its contents. The process was certainly time-consuming, but it was the only real solution for creating the story that we wanted to tell in a beautiful and original way. Viva technology, viva.

And viva Hollard, for constantly innovating while staying true to its storytelling narrative.

For more on Hollard, click here or follow them on Twitter, and view the TVC in full below, if you've not yet seen it: