Analysis: Liberty's Ads Stress Responsibility

When the insurance company planned a new campaign, its agency, Hill Holliday, found that the most potent appeal was to people's deep values

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When Liberty Mutual came to Hill Holliday in late 2005 with its stated goal of becoming a top-five auto insurer, it became very clear, very fast that to achieve this goal, our agency/client team would need to create a campaign that went way beyond the disparate category conventions of "traditional"—think Progressive, for example—or "irreverent," like Geico, to stand out and claim a larger share of consumers' hearts, minds, and wallets.

The agency/client team started with a special strategic process. In contrast to the industry's heavy reliance on analyzing competitive activity, we started by looking inside the culture at and assessing values unique to its employees and its business practices.

We also undertook an examination of the cultural and social context, beyond the insurance category, to seek any social undercurrents relevant to Liberty. We were seeking a natural fit that would lead to a single catalytic idea that would generate external buzz.

Hungry for Relevance

The agency believes the day of passive consumers waiting to receive messages is long gone. In the era of continuous partial attention, the pendulum has swung the other way: Consumers now seek messages, but only if there is a high degree of relevance to their lives.

Our research into Liberty Mutual's corporate culture told us that, in this post-9/11 era, when the unthinkable can happen, when corporate scandal is rife, and when people are losing faith in institutions, people were starting to believe in the importance of becoming more responsible for their own actions and in doing the right thing by themselves and each other.

We also know that any message a company hopes to send has to be authentic. Liberty Mutual's creed, displayed in stone at corporate headquarters in its office on Boston's Berkeley Street, states how the company is engaged in a great mutual enterprise to "help people live safer, more secure lives." Hundreds of employee interviews confirmed that this is something Liberty Mutual employees live by.

That marriage of cultural context and corporate creed meant there was a shared value and one core thought: responsibility. Employees summed it up as: "We know you do your part, and you can count on us to do ours." It's what Liberty believes in, and it is what consumers seek. A proprietary study confirmed this by finding that 90% of people believe that they are "more responsible than others." The team had found the catalytic idea—that collective, almost subconscious thought—that was already part of Liberty Mutual's value system. This shared belief in responsibility would be the basis for a brand movement.

Acts of Personal Responsibility

We decided the best way to get this idea across initially was to celebrate acts of personal responsibility in the U.S. and to position Liberty Mutual as the catalyst for that celebration. To do so, the team had to create work that didn't define what responsibility was and that didn't aim to provide any answers. This kind of approach was almost alien to the advertising industry. The TV anthem launch, supported by print, was titled "What Goes Around," and it demonstrated that when people do the right thing, one good turn begets another, making life better for everyone.

The commercial elicited more than 3,000 positive e-mails to us at Hill Holliday and at Liberty Mutual, including this one, which seemed to sum up the impact it was having on people: "I gained a lot of respect for your company…your commercials showed what little things people can do to show care for others and make the world a more civilized place."

It turns out that in 2006, the first full year the spot ran, Liberty Mutual had the greatest growth in its history. Net premiums written grew 10%.

The Today show picked up the spot and ran it in a segment about "Rudeness in America." Schoolteachers asked for copies to use in discussing responsibility in class. The spot was favorably mentioned by Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball, and in perhaps the most persuasive proof that it touched a deep chord with the American public, it was spoofed by Jay Leno on The Tonight Show.

Follow-Up to the Ad Campaign

Following on the success of the TV campaign, Liberty Mutual recently launched the Responsibility Project, an outgrowth of the company's ad campaign. Liberty Mutual is using a variety of entertainment content, including a Web site with independently produced short films, a blog written by an Emmy and Peabody award-winning journalist, and a resources section for anyone who wants to discuss personal responsibility, as well as TV programs created in partnership with NBC Universal () as catalysts for examining the decisions that confront people trying to "do the right thing."

Individuals can participate in online conversation about personal responsibility and watch and discuss live-action and animated short films at the Responsibility Project's Web site and online community at www.ResponsibilityProject.com.

We've helped consumers think about the brand in a different way by spotlighting issues related to personal responsibility. It's an authentic value that is part of Liberty's culture and it's a value that's relevant and important to our culture today—which makes for a brand message that goes beyond advertising.

Lesley Bielby is chief strategy officer for Hill Holliday. She's a native of Scotland, and her two-decade advertising career began in London. She became an expert in "brand repositioning—working with a brand at a point of change, that desperately needs to appeal to a new audience while retaining its existing, older one." She has supervised the repositioning efforts of prominent brands, including Liberty Mutual, Ben & Jerry's, Royal Caribbean, Audi of America, and Smith Barney.