Meerkats extend award winning HBF campaign with a new series of ‘Moments’ commercials
This week sees the launch of the HBF ‘Moments’ campaign. This is the next stage of the successful campaign for HBF that began in 2009 and won Meerkats local, national and international recognition.
As WA’s leading health insurance brand, HBF continues to explore the message that there are moments in all our lives when we realise our health, and the health of our loved ones, is all that matters.
John Le Cras, HBF’s General Manager of Communications, explains “Learnings from the last campaign showed us just how important it is to talk to the market at this emotional level. Of course, there is still a need for a rational component and that will run hand-in-hand with these new TV commercials.”
This second series in the campaign sees the stories capturing scenarios that are less dramatic than the first campaign, and LeCras believes “They will not only touch people emotionally, they will leave them with a sense of hope. They are all about the human spirit and they depict real life situations of people who have had to face up to difficult moments in the lives of their loved ones.”
Meerkats’ Kurt Beaudoin, who wrote the first campaign, again authored the 60-second spots and said he’s proud to be able to tell these stories.
“In the first campaign the scenarios were pretty intense, deliberately so, to make our point. We were, after all, attempting to reframe an entire category. This time we’ve gone a little softer, with more of a sense of optimism than potential tragedy.”
Once again, the commercials were directed by acclaimed film director Niki Caro, through Flying Fish.
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Credits – Creative Director: Mike Edmonds. Copywriter: Kurt Beaudoin. Art Director: Dan Bradley. Agency Producer: Nicole Beer. Account Director: Will Peart. Account Manager: Claire Wilkinson. Advertiser’s Supervisor: Agata Sleeman. Planner: Ronnie Duncan. Production Company: Flying Fish, Sydney. Producer: Paul S. Friedman. Director: Niki Caro. Cinematographer: Russell Boyd. Editor: David Coulson. Sound Design/Arrangement: Soundbyte Studios, Perth
16 Comments
Ah, the difficult second album. Nicely shot and observed, but still leaves me feeling thoroughly depressed. More importantly it does nothing to make me want to switch to HBF.
60 seconds is probably milking it…
I agree 11.27. It sells the category, not the brand. It’s like saying having a car is better than catching the bus, so buy a Volkswagen.
Very well produced commercial though.
Piss off, these ads are brilliant.
You guys deserve to be number one. Keep up the good work.
(Second album… – depressed take one of your tablets you will feel better now)
2.33 – totally agree about this campaign selling the category rather than the brand.
Sure, these ads are emotionally engaging(/depressing) but I’d assume the majority of consumers are more concerned with getting the best price, incentive, etc, rather than joining HBF because they’ve ‘dared’ to highlight real life issues.
And yes, I’m sure the campaign will be yet another award winner for Meerkats (and no doubt deservedly so) but personally, I’m sticking with my own insurer until HBF gives me a decent reason to switch.
9.37. They’re not brilliant, get back to your iinet brief.
11.01
I dont work at Meerkats dropkick. I do know a good ad when I see one, please enlighten me on the last one you worked on and lets compare them with these… long wait…, I thought so.
Its just nice to see some nice work for a change, not crap like the Mrs Mac’ or Pammy Anderson rubbish.
“More tablets please for 9.37 and please reimburse the sad little soul the gap”
Market leaders move the category forward and HBF do that extremely well!!! Medical Insurance is an emotional purchase not a rational one….it is wholely irrational to pay a company money each month for a service you may never need. Yes you may need to rationalise your choices to explain them to others, as is human nature, but in reality ever insurer is pretty much the same, so establishing an emotional connection with the brand is powerful and by playing on a powerful emotion like sadness people are more likely to act than with all the happy smiley competitors.
11.40 youre showing your age and your gender.Personally I find being emotionally manipulated into buying health insurance via a series of well trodden cliches to be far more offensive than the great rack on Mrs Mac.
LOL so you’re guessing im a women and im over the hill.
Like your comments on these adverts, you have no idea, keep it up Meerkats, this clown would not be forking out to buy health insurance anyway so chances are you’re hitting your target market.
Also I didn’t say I find a good rack offensive just crap.
OK so you’re under 30 (LOL!!) and you’re male. That just leaves ignorant if you can honestly sit there and say that Mrs Mac’s is a crap campaign given the innovative use of the media, the millions of views it received and the world firsts and sales figures it achieved. C’mon son, grow up!
Im not interested in views, Im interested in sales, so what was the return on investment? how much pastry did breasts on a old women move?
And what did the campaign say as a reflection on the brand. What is this brand trying to stand for?
A nice move away from a wholesome quality pie to something you might want to scoff at 3am in Kings Cross after you have had a skinfull and ogled chicks all night.
Yeah lots of people saw it and lots of people wont buy a Mrs Mac pie ever again because of it.
Im one of them, so I guess that means I have grown up. Its about time you give a little more credit to your target market and realize just because they drive a ute and earn shit loads they are still decent young blokes who consume brands and what they stand for far more than you have taken the time to give them credit.
Perhaps its about time you grew up.
Cheers
We have all grown up.
Settle down Lorraine, you’ll choke on your quiche if you’re not careful!
According to the stats in CB’s oasis issue the campaign of the year was an incredibly significant one for Perth. Not only did the viral attract well over a million hits in a few short weeks, the online challenge had more than 3 million interactions over 3days. And the target market -your goodself excluded- responded favourably with a reported 8% increase in sales over the duration of the promo.So come on, take your blinkers off and admit that it was a good un…you can do eeeeeet!
Thanks for the insight no idea.
I guess the proofs of the pie in the eating. Be interested to see how quickly the client runs back to the bank for another campaign.
If I spent that much money on a campaign I would want a better result than 8 percent return. The banks would give me that return on that kind of money.
Cheers Blinkers.
No idea? come on you can do better than that, at least Lorraine was kind of funny and relevant to the subject. I would’ve said something like C’mon Simon stop being so simple-get it Simple Simon met a Pie Man…
LOL after your “kind of funny” attempt I thought I should make an effort to bring it down to that level, thanks for noticing.
Anyway, after all this banter I am now convinced, you have really swayed my opinion and I will concede – yes im right.
And after all this pie talk, im hungry, happy to meet you at Subway to discuss something other than pies.