THE ZEBRA
The Zebra provides an online insurance comparison platform that connects people with top carriers to help them save money on insurance.
Below you’ll see an array of Marketing Deliverables: From Nationally Televised Broadcast commercials and Promoted Social Content to Educational resources and Digitial tools. Our goal was to create a wide variety of customer acquisition content pieces that spoke to customers no matter where they were on their insurance journey.
Brand/Performance Broadcast Commercials,
“Multitudes of You.”
All commercials were directed remotely in the U.S during the early morning hours via Zoom (yawn). The shoot, production, and Director were headquartered in Madrid, Spain.
Role:
Creative Director (client-side. The Zebra).
Creative agency-partner: Argonaut (Creative Director, Matt Kelsen, Art Director, Sarah Mcneely, Copywriter, Mariah Kline).
The Ask:
Working in collaboration with our external agency partner, we were asked to develop a hybrid brand & performance-focused national broadcast campaign to help position The Zebra as the go-to insurance comparison site for people across a wide array of insurance needs.
Concept Description
Not every person is the same, so why should we expect our insurance policies to be? Whether you've just moved out of your parent's house, buying your first home, or setting off into retirement in your new R.V., everyone's insurance needs are unique.
We developed (4) broadcast commercials that spoke both to a broad campaign message ("Harper") and to value pillars that research informed us were essential to our audience segments (Transparency, Savings, and Ease of Use).
Meet “Harper.”
Overview:
Here we show a character named "Harper" through different stages in her life journey—pointing out that her needs may change based on where she's at in her journey.
Messaging Focus:
The Zebra helps you find the right policy no matter what your stage of life.
Value Pillar:
Personalization
Meet “Jean.”
Overview:
Our second spot focused on a character named "Jean." Transparency is so important to her that she drives an invisible car. The goal of the ad is to communicate how The Zebra meets her needs by providing honest, accurate, and transparent options that make her choice clear.
Messaging Focus:
The Zebra gives you honest and transparent information to help you find the right policy that fits your needs.
Value Pillar:
Transparency
Meet “Larry.”
Overview:
Spot #3 features a lovable character named "Larry." Saving is so vital to him that he returns lost cats to their owners—in his spare time. The purpose is to highlight The Zebra's primary benefit to users—helping people save money on their insurance. We accomplish that by painting a delightful and loveable human story around Larry being the neighborhood cat-returner.
Messaging Focus:
The Zebra gives users choices and options that help them save money.
Value Pillar:
Savings
Meet “Wendell.”
Overview:
Spot #4 features our final character named "Wendell." Wendell lives in a Bounce House but (ironically) hates bouncing around the internet looking for insurance. The goal is to create a humorous and memorable brand moment for consumers who also find the idea of searching for insurance daunting.
Messaging Focus:
The Zebra gives users one place to shop and compare for all their insurance needs.
Value Pillar:
Ease of Use
Direct Response Broadcast Ads.
Before we embarked on our new slate of Brand-building broadcast ads, we closed out 2020 with purely focused direct response ads. This recipe used light humor and over-the-top images of destroying money to illustrate how easy it is to use The Zebra and how much money Americans waste on car insurance every year.
“Easy” - Direct Response ad featuring a fake Zebra. You’ve gotta take a shot putting a Zebra in an ad when your name is “The Zebra”, right?
Role: Creative Director (client-side. The Zebra).
Creative agency-partner: TCA
"Money Chipper" - Direct Response ad featuring a couple throwing money into a woodchipper as a metaphor for how much money Americans waste on car insurance every year.
Role: Creative Director (client-side. The Zebra).
Creative agency-partner: TCA
Streaming Audio Commercials
Role:
Creative Director
Copywriter: Jenn Dodd
The Ask:
Write and produce a collection of commercials for streaming audio channels that mixed performance-based product information with channel-focused relatable humor.
Educational Tools, Digital Experiences, and Branding
State of Auto Insurance Report: 2021
“The State of Auto Insurance” is an annual report The Zebra’s PR and Marketing team creates as a resource of information for both media outlets, industry professionals, and consumers that reveals the latest data, trends impacting rates, and which drivers pay the most, based on an analysis of 83 million rates.
We created both an online experience and a downloadable PDF to cater to different types of users.
Role:
Creative Director
Art Director:
Ruthie Fleming
Car Insurance Calculator
The “Car Insurance Calculator” is a marketing acquisition tool we designed to give users a soft experience into our product funnel. Potential customers can select non-identifying car information to get a range of what their quote results could be.
In other words, customers can kick the tires on what to expect when they decide to take the product journey and feel confident in making that decision by playing with this tool beforehand.
Role:
Creative Director
Art Director:
Ryan Weaver
Brand Guidelines: 2021Update
In preparation for 2021, my team helped develop and update our Brand Guidelines book with new:
Voice and tone rules
Consumer Insurance Journey Messaging
New audience segments
New persona cards
Design illustration styles
Role:
Creative Director
Art Director:
Ryan Weaver
Copywriter
Michael Savage
Promoted Social
In addition to the channels listed above, we created a variety of ads to display across different social and content channels. Below you’ll see work for Pinterest, Twitter, Snapchat, and YouTube.
Video Ad Version (A)
Role: Creative Director
Art Direction, animation, and video production: Matt Flynn
We created a video ad (with music) leveraging footage captured in our “Money Chipper” commercial ad that featured a pile of shredded money as a metaphor for waste.
Video Ad Version (B)
Role: Creative Director
Art Direction, animation, and video production: Matt Flynn
In this version, we varied the footage captured in our “Money Chipper” commercial ad with voice-over, music, and soft-product shots of our comparison results.
The focus of this campaign was to target potential customers in three regions: Texas, California, and Florida. We tested two different layout and messaging approaches: a composite photography style by integrating people into the shape of their state and giving a sneak-peak at the product tiles, and a postcard-style illustration with a region-specific ending copy line.
Role: Creative Director
Art Direction / Copywriting: Matt Flynn, Michael Savage
SnapChat
We were asked to create promoted posts/videos that leveraged previous commercial spots and meet the energy of Snapchat (and all their fun filters).
Role: Creative Director
Art Direction / Copywriting: Matt Flynn, Ruthie Fleming
“Money Blender.” See full commercial here
“Money Marshmallow.” See full commercial here
YouTube — skippable in-stream ad
We developed a 20-second skippable in-stream ad during a YouTube influencer segment with car-culture content creators, Donut Media. Since the audience is skewed male, we thought it would be interesting to create an educational factoid video about how fast the electric Tesla Model-3 is and compare that to how quickly The Zebra can get you a quote on your car insurance.
The ad was so successful on YouTube that we created a series of Facebook and Instagram posts with the same video.
Role: Creative Director
Art Direction / Copywriting: Matt Flynn, Michael Savage
