FBD Insurance Campaign Lets Everyone Know What it Really Stands For

The Public House in collaboration with FBD have launched a new communications campaign to promote their car, home and farm insurance products. The campaign will be brought to life across TV, digital, social and radio throughout 2023. The campaign is the latest iteration of FBD’s brand platform, ‘Support. It’s what we do.’, which was first developed by The Public House in 2019.

Most insurance shoppers consider less than three insurers at renewal time, so being top of mind is incredibly important for such brands. In a highly competitive category, it’s tough to gain cut-through and get onto that shortlist without outspending. The campaign strategy, therefore, was cleverly designed by both agency and client to keep FBD front and centre in consumers’ minds in order to drive recall for the brand.

Commenting on the campaign, Sarah Walsh, head of strategy, said, “Knowing that people only think about their insurance when it comes to renewal time, the core focus for this campaign was to create something really memorable to stand out against the formula of the category.”

The creative crux of this campaign uses a simple insight - although FBD has been a household name for over 50 years, many still don’t know what the acronym stands for. Rather than reveal the answer to that riddle (sorry, no spoilers here), the campaign uses that thought to tell a new story about support.

That lack of knowledge creates a fun place for FBD’s new campaign to inhabit, while also setting up a satisfactory response. FBD stands for support. Support for home and business owners, support for drivers and support for farmers. That support takes the form of offers, deals, savings and aftercare. The campaign employs humour as a creative device, one of the most effective techniques for driving engagement and memorability for brands, albeit one that is used less and less often these days.

Mikey Curran, associate creative director at The Public House, said, “This new campaign for FBD is unmistakably theirs. Nobody else in the category could run, nor emulate it. It’s a truly ownable distinctive device that we think will last the test of time. When your insurance is next up for renewal, we believe three letters will spring to mind. They will for us anyway, we now see the world in potential FBD acronyms.”

Sharon Treanor, head of marketing for FBD Insurance, said, “This highly distinctive campaign showcases the breadth of our product offering whilst building on our platform of support. We’re delighted with the end result and are looking forward to an exciting 2023…”

The Public House enlisted the help of Abstraction Pictures to develop this campaign, which involved a suite of TV ads, social and digital assets. Speaking about the work, director, Lorcan Hynes said, “It was a pleasure to work on such a clever and confident creative campaign with The Public House. Each of the films embrace irony and off-kilter sensibilities which I hope will resonate with a modern Irish audience.”

The campaign went live on December 26th and will run throughout 2023.