Who: Insurance Brokers Association of Canada (IBAC), with Agency59 for strategy, creative and media; Nimiopere for editing; Eggplant Sound and Music for sound; Tantrum for VFX.

What: “The World Doesn’t Work Without Insurance. Insurance Works Best With an Insurance Broker,” a new brand platform and launch campaign for the national organization representing approximately 38,000 brokers.

When & Where: The national campaign launched late last month, and is running with two 15-second TV spots, contextual out-of-home, digital/social, and an upcoming print ad in The Hill Times. All of the creative elements drive to a dedicated page, BrokerBenefit.ca.

Why: Agency59’s chief creative officer Brian Howlett said the campaign is aimed at elevating brokers among two key constituencies: Consumers who are being increasingly attracted by the simplicity of online insurance companies, as well as the next generation of brokers.

“What we’re suggesting is that [working with a broker] works much better than getting insurance for your house in five minutes online,” said Howlett. “It’s a human being getting to know you and what you need, versus a five-minute conversation with a robot where you get standardized insurance.” The campaign is also intended to encourage people to consider a career as a broker.

How: Unlike previous IBAC campaigns such as 2021’s “The Broker Benefit,” which leaned on humour to deliver the message about the importance of using a broker to ensure the correct coverage, this campaign takes a more earnest approach.

“It’s a bit more serious proposition that, fundamentally, the world won’t work without insurance,” said Howlett. “It’s a bigger, bolder proposition for sure.”

The video creative takes a literal approach to show the world not working without insurance. An overhead shot of a busy highway shows cars and trucks coming to abrupt stop, accompanied by the super “Without insurance you can’t drive. Shops and businesses can’t open,” followed by the tagline.

A second video shows a conveyor belt full of packages, accompanied by the super “Without insurance things can’t get made. Or shipped.” As it progresses, packages are eliminated from the belt one-by-one. The original scripts took the idea of the world not working even further, but the creative team instead opted to pull back and express the idea in a simple, easy-to-understand manner, said Howlett. “What we’re intended to do was create a hypnotic, otherworldly feeling.”

The message is being further driven home by contextually relevant out-of-home placements, such as an airport ad that reads “Without insurance, planes couldn’t fly,” for example. The upcoming newspaper ad provides a more fulsome argument of why the world wouldn’t work without insurance, outlining the myriad ways daily life would be affected—from no morning coffee, no newspapers, and no clothes because they couldn’t be made or shipped. “But it wouldn’t matter,” it concludes. “Because the economy would be at a standstill.”

And we quote: “IBAC is proud of our latest national advertising campaign. We believe that it will respond to the priority of talent attraction by elevating the insurance industry generally and the broker profession specifically. No one has positioned the importance of insurance, or insurance brokers, in quite this way.” — Peter Braid, CEO, IBAC