The Background
With the lowest SOV in the category, Irish Life were up against it launching a new Female Health campaign. Through better thinking, better targeting and better tactics, the “you know your body better than anyone’ campaign delivered the most successful commercial and brand growth amongst females since Irish Life Health launched.
This campaign won the Best TV Strategy category at the 2024 TAMI Awards
The Challenge
Irish Life’s brand promise is to help people have better lives & better futures. They are the most recent entrant to the health insurance market with the lowest SOV.
Recruiting younger females is critical to long-term growth as they are key decision makers individually and for their families. However, when they’re in need of caring for themselves, women often feel let down by the healthcare system. Irish Life developed a better way to serve this audience – a market first ‘Female Health Consultation’, giving unique access to GPs who specialise in Female Health.
To ensure this message connected emotionally with the women of Ireland Zenith needed to reach them when they were paying most attention to media, AV was the natural choice to help achieve these key objectives;
1. Build A Connection – Win the attention of W25-44 in order to win their hearts & minds.
2. Build The Brand – Grow ILH key brand metrics
3. Build The Business – Grow leads & lives with valuable female segments
The Strategy
Zenith identified that delivering attentive and emotionally charged reach would be key. Initial media consumption analysis for the target audience, W25-44, presented some challenges, namely that this audience are particularly difficult to reach and are disproportionally affected by media fragmentation. Two clear challenges were outlined;
1. Low Supply – The average adult is exposed to more adverts per week than ever before, and women are disproportionally affected by this. Women are spending more time out and about, more time online, less time watching TV. How can we deliver attentive reach to women 25-44 on TV when they aren’t spending much time here?
2. High Demand – From an investment perspective, we didn’t have the budget to reach a premium W25-44 audience, at a scale required for launching a new product on TV. W25-44 trade on average double the cost of A25-44
To solve the above challenges, Zenith developed a two-pronged approach;
1. Programming Access – developing a programming strategy enabling them to lean in to; life stage targeting, time of day and consumer mindsets. They identified key programmes which the female audience resonate with.
2. Buying Method – Zenith continued to buy A25-44 because the CPT during launch period was 46% less than that of W25-44. They knew that their programming strategy outlined above would help disproportionally reach W25-44, without having to pay double the price to do so, and therefore TV budgets could outpunch their weight.
The programming strategy was split into two main strands; Female Focussed Reach Superchargers & Over Indexing Frequency Drivers.
Through the first strand they prioritized access to primetime TV shows that traditionally over index to a W25-44 audience. These are appointment to view, lean in TV occasions allowing the TVC to gain full attention of the relevant female audience they are reaching, in their brief moments of downtime during otherwise very busy days.
Our second strand was all about hitting their relevant audience at a higher frequency to help build resonance. For example, during parental leave new mothers are exposed to more daytime TV therefore Zenith upweighted the delivery into these shows which over index for W25-44.
TV was the lead channel to deliver our new ad and build attentive reach, however in the fragmented media landscape of today, it is vital to have a diversified media mix. A mixture of YouTube and BVOD helped us deliver incremental AV reach. Higher frequency media including Audio & Paid Social complimented the emotional & high impact cut through we were getting on AV, playing the important role as “refreshers”, prompting memorability of the connection made through the TVC.
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The Results
So how did Zenith deliver on the plans overall objectives?:
1. Build A Connection – Win the attention of W25-44 in order to win their hearts & minds.
Q4 research results have shown huge progress in Irish Life Female Health credentials, most notably with “leading the way for female health in Ireland” amongst W25-44. Recent TAM study in conjunction with Red C / Amplified Intelligence found Irish Life commands more attention on linear TV than any other test brand. Female Health ranked 6th overall, the creative unsurprisingly resonated strongly with W25-44, our programming strategy ensured they were viewing it when they were most engaged with TV.
2. Build The Brand – Grow Irish Life Health brand metrics across awareness, consideration, and 1st choice.
In the 6 month period from launch & re-support activity Irish Life Health has seen a 10 percentage point increase in consideration. This is a unprecedented rise across such a relatively short period. Equally, spontaneous brand awareness metrics have grown 6% YOY, and 5% since pre – launch. Our budgets or SOV did not increase during the period, discounting scale as a factor and further vindicating our strategy.
3. Build The Business – Grow leads & lives with valuable female segments
Since launch Irish Life has seen a 38% increase in Female lives. Overall sales have also increased 8% in the period. Market share has grown 0.5%, outpacing competitors vs lower SOV.
It is clear from the above results that Better Thinking, Better Targeting, Better Tactics have helped deliver Irish Life a better connection with their audience, a better brand, and ultimately a better business.
“Women have had to become experts on themselves, due to a lack of women’s health services. We needed to innovatively and empathetically use our full repertoire of media channels to emotionally connect with and optimise awareness of our unique female health GP consultation service. We successfully communicated and showed how we’re an ally for women, giving another example of how they can have a better life with Irish Life. Zenith’s media planning, buying, and strategy combined with Folk WTs’ creative has transformed our growth trajectory in the health category. As a result of our ‘You know your body better than anyone’ campaign, Irish Life is significantly more likely to be considered in the mindset of women in Ireland. We’ve saw significant growth in our key brand metrics with Spontaneous Awareness increasing +13% year on year and 1st Choice Consideration +8% – overtaking Laya in the health category for the first time. This increased consideration among females has helped deliver the most successful commercial growth since Irish Life launched in the health category in 2016 by growing market share by 0.5%, outpacing competitors versus our share of voice.”
Richard Daly, Senior Brand and Advertising Manager, Irish Life
Credits
Brand:
Irish Life
Media Agency:
Zenith, Part of Core
Award:
TAMI Awards Winner: Best TV Strategy 2024