Hooray! We’ve been shortlisted for the 2010 DADI Awards!
Our work for Virgin Holidays is up for ‘Best Use of Organic Search’ and our “Summer’s Hottest Playlist” campaign is in the running for the ’Digital Media Strategy’ award.
Looking forward to November when we find out if we win…
Swiftcover.com is set to become the first insurer to use in-game advertising. The new brand campaign will feature virtual billboards in games such as Pro Evolution Soccer; Guitar Hero, Tiger Woods PGA Tour and Blur (a racing game). The ads will run through August and September on Xbox Live.
The in-game ads will tie into Swiftcover’s “Get a Life” advertising campaign theme featuring Iggy Pop and the “Little Iggy” puppet.
Tina Shortle, Marketing Director for AXA Insurance and swiftcover.com, commented on the initiative, “Swiftcover and Steak have worked closely together over the past five years to stay ahead of the competition. We were the first online only car insurer in 2005, we launched the first car insurance mobile site back in 2007 and have pioneered emerging media channels including Video on Demand and Spotify. Most importantly, we’ve capitalised on early-adopter advantage and have seen some fantastic results.”
The idea was conceived by Steak, who brokered the deal with Massive, the leading video game network, on behalf of swiftcover.com.
Alastair Boyle, Group Account Director at Steak added, “In-Game advertising is a perfect fit for the swiftcover.com brand and their target audience. This is the latest in our drive to use innovative ad formats for the right reasons, rather than jumping on every new media trend.”
Chris James, EMEA Manager at Massive concluded, “We’re very pleased to be working with Steak to select the right in-game placements for swiftcover.com. In-game ads have been shown to have some of the best recall rates around so it’s fantastic that more and more advertisers are now realising the potential of this medium.”
Studies have shown 72% of gamers recall seeing ads for brands in-game. In 2009 there was a 20% increase in average ad recall from the year before and the average brand recommendation lift scores were 29% ahead [MICROSOFT, 2009] 73% of gamers agreed that “ads enhanced the realism of the game” [INTERPRET, 2008]; and that across 600 gamers on Xbox 360 and PC showed that brand familiarity increased by 64%, brand rating increased by 37%, purchase consideration increased by 41% [NIELSEN, 2007].
List voted by music lovers through social media app
The campaign from swiftcover.com, the pioneer in online insurance, offered music lovers the chance to create this “Summer’s Hottest Playlist” in collaboration with Absolute Radio. Building on their ‘Get a Life’ campaign, swiftcover.com extended the campaign theme to encourage users to ‘get a life’ this summer by voting for the summer’s hottest tracks. The campaign devised by Steak, used Facebook as the main hub, hosting an easy-to-use voting application.
A master playlist of 75 tracks was selected by popular Absolute Radio DJs: Christian O’Connell, Geoff Lloyd and Ben Jones. Spotify and Absolute Radio listeners were prompted by the DJs to visit the Swiftcover Facebook page and voted daily for two weeks via the “sucks” or “rocks” buttons beside the track. This saw the music tracks physically rising and falling, depending on popularity, on the Facebook “chart”.
The final playlist hosted is hosted by Spotify on 22 June through the summer; with Facebook fans, Absolute Radio and Spotify listeners being notified that the winning list can be downloaded and played all summer long.
The idea was conceived by Steak, who is handling the social media and online display campaign. Audio and display ads including billboards and takeover pages, will appear on Spotify, Absolute Radio and Facebook linking through to swiftcover.com’s Facebook page. The Facebook app songs then link back to Spotify, which enables visitors to the site to listen to the tracks they’re voting for; and there is an opportunity to win a Spotify premium account for a year.
Tina Shortle, Marketing Director says, “This is a perfect campaign for the summer – sitting in the park in the sunshine listening to music that you’ve voted for – it epitomises our ‘Get a Life’ campaign. We’re excited that social media was at the heart of this campaign. Absolute Radio, Facebook and Spotify are the perfect partners for music lovers to create this ‘Summer’s Hottest Playlist’”.
John Barton, Head of Planning and Social Media at Steak says “We wanted to demonstrate how we can effectively integrate social media into our existing through the line digital strategy. This campaign is ultimately about building and fostering relationships between swiftcover.com and their audience in social channels that they’re comfortable with by adding value rather than selling. Music and summer festivals are effective passion point or the swiftcover.com
demographic and form the basis of our content strategy. We are excited and fortunate to work with brands like swiftcover.com who continue to lead the way in digital marketing within the insurance vertical sector”.
Kate Hussey, Head of Display at Steak says “We are excited about enhancing the current Absolute Radio partnership for swiftcover.com along with introducing another key strategic partner, Spotify, as a main driver of our audience. We believe that this campaign has the ability to kick off a summer full of ‘Getting a Life’”.
