Animal Friends are a classic example of a modern day Challenger brand. Battling daily against the big insurance providers as well as the supermarkets, they needed to craft a brand identity and story that was unique, compelling and authentic.
Central to the Animal Friends proposition is that they donate large amounts of their net profits and time to support and help animal welfare causes on a global basis. So a policy with Animal Friends not only makes you feel good about being a responsible pet owners but also makes you feel good that you are helping less fortunate animals as well. This basic truth inspired the positioning and brand essence around the notion of “Feel Good” insurance.
To make sure we captured this genuine sentiment amongst policy holders we crowdsourced pictures of pets and pet stories in order to give us the raw content to create a unique visual identity. To try and create that homemade and quintessential English feel we used the skills of a plasticine modeller to bring the many many characters to life.
In the space of 6 weeks to over 1200 fans and growing rapidly
Launched in April 2010 the brand has achieved some amazing results, including reaching over 100,000 policy holders. As part of the ongoing campaign the crew at Hurricane redesigned and rebuilt the Animal friends web site and quote engine (www.animalfriends.org.uk), redesigned all their existing policy holder communications as well as setting up a full social media strategy and execution focused around Facebook Twitter and YouTube.
Traffic to the web site increased by over 40%, search rankings increased across all major terms, conversion rates increased by over 5% and the Facebook community has grown organically in the space of 6 weeks to over 1200 fans and growing rapidly.
Watch the “making of the characters” video.
