Suncorp and Leo Burnett berate home owners for neglect

Suncorp Insurance and its creative agency Leo Burnett have been on a roll in the past few years with their award-winning 'resilience' campaigns to make Australian homes stronger.

In 2021, they came out with One House to Save Many, an experiment that blasted a model house with fire, winds and floods to show just how resilient new prototype building technologies can be.  The campaign won many major awards including the Cannes Lions Innovation Grand Prix. 

In 2022, they followed it up with Resilience Road, applying the same technology to five neighbouring homes in Queensland along a single street to show how applying some of the more simple steps to new home construction can make the difference between surviving an extreme weather event or not. 

Now, in 2023, the insurer and its Publicis Groupe agency have presented their next campaign in the series called 'If your home could talk'. This time around, no new ultra-sturdy homes are being built, nor do they bombard it with water, wind and fire. Instead, the heat is turned onto homeowners, who are showered and blasted with a healthy dose of guilt.

If your home could talk, apparently it would tell you to get off your lazy butt and help fix it up. Yes, the campaign this time around is simply a message to treat your home better and make it stronger. The main film is more subtle, of course. Your home is your sanctuary. You've relied on it to keep you safe. It's protected you. It's part of the family. Isn't it time you showed it more love and cleaned those gutters and repaired the roof? "Make me stronger," it says.

“We love our homes because they form such a large part of our life experiences, and they protect us," says Suncorp CMO and EGM of Brand and Marketing and Campaign Power List member Mim Haysom. "In return, we must protect them. Whilst South East Queenslanders are alert to the danger of bigger, more impactful weather events, we needed to get them to start changing their behaviour to prepare rather than just react.”

Protecting one's home is a pretty common-sense objective. But Leo Burnett executive creative director, Andy Fergusson takes it a step further. “We believe that our homes are one of the most important characters in our lives," he says. "They silently share our most joyous and intimate moments. But that silence means we often take them for granted, neglecting our home’s needs in the face of the ever-worsening effects of climate change. We hope this campaign will challenge Australians to think differently about the role homes play in their lives.”

Suddenly people are being called out for taking their homes for granted and neglecting them. While Ad Nut believes strongly in the virtues of keeping up one's home, this kind of message doesn't sit well with Ad Nut. Yes, people love their homes. They don't need an insurance company to tell them that, or scold them to take better care of it. If home repairs aren't done, it's usually not because the homeowners are just lazy or neglectful. There might be other valid priorities or health issues preventing them from ideal upkeep. Or they might not be able to afford it right now. Maybe their insurance premiums have gone up making it more difficult. 

Ad Nut is looking forward to seeing how the campaign plays out as it runs in Queensland across broadcast, outdoor, social and digital.  The agency says it will continue to be rolled out over the coming months with product stories and digital tools. Ad Nut likes that it includes an updated website called the Resilience Hub, with tips for people to make their homes more resilient.

This strikes Ad Nut as a much better way to engage Queensland homeowners on potential improvements rather than laying down an extra thick layer of guilt. Perhaps it's on being scolded that Ad Nut really requires some new resilience tips.

CREDITS

Client: Suncorp

EGM Brand & Marketing: Mim Haysom
Head of Mass Brands & Sponsorships: Rapthi Thanapalasingam
Manager, Marketing Suncorp Insurance: Travis Hughes
Marketing Lead, Suncorp Insurance: Jade Thomas
Marketing Specialist, Suncorp Insurance: Yvette Braybrook
Manager, Suncorp Group Content & Personalisation: Ashika Naran
Suncorp Content Lead: Kat Pope & Lyndall Theodore

Creative Agency: Leo Burnett Australia
National Executive Creative Director: Andy Fergusson
Group Creative Director: Bec Johnson-Pond
Associate Creative Director: Marijke Spain
Copywriter: Michael Dawson
Art Director: Jim Walsh
Copywriter: Dan Obey
Chief Client Partner: Amanda Wheeler

Senior Business Director: Shae Jones

Business Manager: Armani Naish
Chief Strategy Officer: Catherine King

Strategy Director: Abigail Dubin-Rhodin
CX Strategy Director: Kate Horvath
National Experience Design Director: Chris Jovanov
Social & Content Lead: Irnin Khan
Content Manager: Nick Savvas
1:1 Connections Lead: Gabrielle Joassard
1:1 Strategy Director: Claire Webber
Producers: Nara Lea 

Multimedia Studio Manager: Dan Crozier


Digital Design: Janifer Wong
Digital Interface Developer: Keong Seet

Production Partner: Hogarth
Senior Editor: Aleks Manou
Senior Designer: Brenton Parry
Editor/Animation: Hernan Vulliez
Senior Producer: Tania Templeton
Junior Producer: Chelsea Higgs
Production Coordinator: Kayleigh Hutchinson

Production Company: Good Oil
Director: Adam Gunser
Executive Producer: Juliet Bishop
Head of Production: Chana McLallen
DOP: Sam Chiplin
Art Director: Andrei Meintjes
Wardrobe: Bea Berry

Edit House: The Editors
Editor: Mark Burnett
Post Producer: Liv Reedy
Colourist: Fergus Rotherham

VFX House: Fin Design
Online Artist: Mikey Brown
Post Producer: Emily Newbould

Music & Sound Design: Massive Music

Kenny Smith: Photographer
George Saada: Producer

Media: OMD

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