Clangers, cane toads and rallying cry: How Suncorp marketing aims to reflect and connect to its customers

At first glance it might not seem like there’s a natural affinity between life’s clangers, cane toads, 50 somethings managing retirement and the sound of a rallying cry for teen girls. But these make up some of the recent marketing campaigns for Suncorp and demonstrate the business' goal of staying relevant and authentic to its varied customer groups.

Suncorp in the last few weeks has launched several new campaigns that demonstrate how the financial services and insurance group is handling the job of promoting its distinct brands by connecting to its very diverse customer base.

AAMI, which is part of the Suncorp stable, launched the ‘Clangers happen’ campaign through its AFL sponsorship with the message that when a clanger, mishap or small slip happens, it’s lucky you’re with AAMI, who are there to help you recover.

‘Clangers Happen, Lucky You’re with AAMI’ is a fully-integrated campaign leveraging AAMI’s AFL sponsorship and channel 7 AFL broadcast sponsorship.

AAMI has a strong presence in Victoria and NSW and AFL is strong in these states, so the partnership works well in terms of generating awareness in key audiences, according to executive general manager, brand and marketing, Mim Haysom.

She saw the clangers campaign as continuing to build on its sport sponsorship and to integrate and amplify that awareness and messaging by creating content that is contextually relevant.

“It’s very much been AAMI’s territory that it’s a brand there to support when things go wrong and an easy connection," Haysom told CMO. "It builds on that brand equity and is contextual relevant and brings that to life.”

Suncorp also felt the time was right to talk to its home state and has just debuted its ‘No One Knows Queensland Like A Queenslander’ campaign aimed to demonstrate its unique understanding of the sunshine state and cover for life’s quintessentially Queensland moments.

“It’s a natural evolution of what we’ve been doing with the brand and a natural step to go back to our grassroots and talk to Queensland, the home state, and use examples from real life to do that,” Haysom said.

Haysom added Suncorp insurance company has been on the ground to help after several natural disasters. Coupled with its heritage, she saw it to be a powerful brand combination.

“I don’t think every brand has it and not every brand has the right to assume it," she continued. "Suncorp has been there to help rebuild in certain situations such as the Brisbane floods and has the right to play in that space and tap into that with marketing.”

Targeted, authentic marketing the aim

Another one of Suncorp's brands getting a makeover is the over 50s insurance business, Apia. Recent research found this group of customers didn’t feel many brands understood their needs nor provide products and services to cater to them.

“What came through clearly is this group doesn’t like cliques like being sedentary and getting old. It came through strongly that it’s a dynamic audience, and that 50 is the new 30," Haysom said. "But what they saw reflected back at them [in advertising] was not how they felt. We wanted to use that insight to refresh that brand and we wanted to talk to them in an authentic way. We wanted to capture that insight and connect it."

At the other end of the age spectrum, Suncorp partnered with Netball Australia on its Suncorp Team Girls initiative aimed at promoting girls participation in sport. The initiative comes off the back of the recently released 2019 Australian Youth Confidence Report and program involves sport ambassadors, tool kits for sport promotion through schools and clubs along with sponsorship of Super Netball.

Haysom said it's part of enabling authentic brand marketing through deep integration and content such as videos, hashtags, reports and advertising, a natural extension.

What is key is the insurance businesses' approaches are authentic and show it knows its customers and talks to them where they are, she said.

“We do creative effectiveness tracking and listen to our customers and if we feel like sentiment shifted or the work in the market is not cutting through we can make a call to revisit and refresh it,” Haysom said.

“It is about greater opportunities to create contextual relevance and extension and to give a reason for the brand to be in there. You get relevance, integration and content extensions that are a far more effective way to spend our money than just spots and dots.”

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