'In good hands' wins best brand campaign 2009 for Ecclesiastical

Ecclesiastical is a niche insurance provider selling both business and consumer insurance via brokers. Its B2B arm provides insurance to the charity, heritage, care, education and faith sectors.

Challenge

Its marketing problem was that its niches didn't sit naturally together, and it had no competitor with the same set of niches to help turn it into a recognisable 'category'.  It therefore was effectively marooned in different niches depending on how a broker first came across them, resulting in low overall brand awareness with brokers and enormous difficulty in growing market share in any of their categories.

Solution

Research carried out prior to the campaign launch showed that despite low overall awareness, Ecclesiastical was still voted best performing insurer in all five of its niches. This formed the basis of the message it wanted to promote - that it was the best in every sector it worked in.

A creative route needed to be chosen that sat culturally with a company that was a million miles from the cut and thrust of the likes of Aviva and More Than. There could be no brash headlines saying 'We're number one'. Instead, a branding exercise needed to be undertaken to help it achieve standout.