Telling a good story

In Asia, insurance companies use super-sad ads to reel in customers: in the UK we prefer to use humour.

While I was searching for some interesting stories about insurance and approaches to insurance marketing and advertising, I came across an interesting article at Business Insider about the Asian approach to advertising insurance. I know that we’re in Spain and that our insurance clients focus on the expat market in Spain, Gibraltar and Portugal, but I couldn’t resist sharing this article with you, if only because it illustrates how emotion can be a compelling sales tool for insurance. It also emphasizes the concept of being uplifting rather

British insurance advertising tends to rely more on humour, when it does use emotion and not just sell the product: think of Churchill and the many characters Paul Whitehouse has played for Aviva. The closest British advertising has come to confronting sadness in an insurance advert is the 2013 Co-operative Funeralcare TV advert from London agency Leo Burnett. Ironically, the advert is called “Smile.” It is wistful and doesn’t demand an over-emotional response from the viewer.

The Thai Life ad “Unsung Hero,” which has Thai television viewers weeping openly and which has gone viral across Asia, is a completely different proposition. As Business Insider says; “ In the East, super-sad ads… are a time-honoured advertising tradition.” Any racial stereotypes we might have of Oriental lack of emotion is completely destroyed by the reaction to this advert, which features a young man performing random acts of kindness.

I won’t spoil the structure of this ad by telling you how it plays out; you can watch it at the link in the first paragraph above. What I can tell you is that Thai Life via its agency Ogilvy & Mather Bangkok, has used the concept of simply telling an uplifting story without any reference to the brand or product, until the very end. And even then, the strapline is simply “Thai Life. Doing Good.”

Asian consumers love a good cause and are eager to share adverts that tell an uplifting story. Unruly, a viral video tracking company reports that Thai and Chinese audiences share ads they like across all their social media accounts in “one blast” rather than sharing with individual friends or small groups. Unruly also report that getting British or American viewers to share an ad based on the fact it’s a good cause is much more difficult.

However, we Westerners can’t be totally devoid of kindness because Upworthy, the online news site that accentuates the positive, is No. 1 in the Top 25 Most Shared Sites, according to Scanvine. Its stories regularly turn up on my Facebook page. And we don’t have a problem with charity advertising. But, come to think of it, we don’t share it via our social media networks; we share videos of cats kissing dolphins. And that’s where the Asian businesses have an advantage.

Using social media to spread the advertising message is something advertisers should push. Of course, you need a compelling story that reflects your brand values.