Onlia puts focus on simplicity over safety

Who: Onlia Insurance, with Blackjet for strategy and creative, True Media for media buying and strategy.

What: “Go Online With Onlia,” a campaign featuring a new brand focus on the convenience of arranging home and auto insurance with Onlia.

When & Where: The campaign launched May 30, and will run through the end of the year on TV and online video.

Why: Since its first mass advertising campaign in late 2019, Onlia has put a heavy emphasis on safety. The launch campaign talked about making a safer Canada, while followup versions positioned the brand’s safety obsession as a way to save money. The original campaign was by DDB, though later work was done by Onlia’s in-house team.

Those loftier brand stories have been replaced with more functional positioning in order to reach millennials with a message that Onlia offers a simpler, more convenient way to insure their car and home. “Onlia’s benefits are crystal clear and simply said in the new spot,” said Julia Stein, Onlia’s senior marketing lead in a release. “Instead of trying to out-gimmick the competitors in a very crowded market, we focused on what makes us unique.”

How: Two different but similar spots—one for auto and one for home—open with a man asking his neighbour “What’s that?” In both cases he’s pointing to the bright pink speech bubble from the Onlia logo.

In one ad it’s floating over her car, while in another it’s over her house. In both cases, however, the woman explains that she got the insurance from her phone, leading the man to open his smartphone to quickly sign up for the insurance himself.

With a nod to millennial nostalgia, Choclair’s hip-hop classic “Let’s Ride” starts to play as more pink Onlia bubble logos pop up around the neighbourhood.

And we quote: “Onlia has an inspiring vision for insurance in Ontario… The new strategy really resonates with consumers and provided a rich creative seam for us to mine.” —Rob Galletta, CEO, Blackjet

 

David Brown