Advertiser: STATE FARM
Agency: TRANSLATION
Category: Financial Products & Servcies
Advertising campaign: BORN TO ASSIST
Senior Vice President/Group Account Director: Ben Gladstone (Translation)
Brand Channel Manager: Iyana Gregory (Translation)
Partner/Strategy Director: John Mcbride (Translation)
Strategist: Julie Qiu (Translation)
Senior Copywriter: James Cohen (Translation)
Director/Social Engagement: Marcus Collins (Translation)
Producer: Peter Ostella (Translation)
Senior Copywriter: Nate Virnig (Translation)
Distributions/Partnerships: Robby Egan (Translation)
Senior Art Director: Shannon Gibney (Translation)
Account Director: Susanna Swartley (Translation)
Associate Creative Director: Danielle Thornton (Translation)
Associate Creative Director: Emily Sander (Translation)
Chief Executive Officer: Steve Stoute (Translation)
Account Supervisor: Susan Min (Translation)
Chief Creative Officer: Chris Cereda (Translation)
Senior Partner/Chief Strategy Officer: John Greene (Translation)
Account Executive: John Swan (Translation)
Director Of Content Production: Miriam Franklin (Translation)
Managing Director: Tiffany Coletti Titolo (Translation)
Client Brief Or Objective
State Farm has the largest network of agents among all auto insurers, but they have lost their cachet amidst a highly commoditized market. To help regain relevancy with prospective customers, we needed to change the conversation around insurance from being about price to customer service. To break through the conventions of the insurance category, we reframed the State Farm agent’s assist advantage through a context that was meaningful and culturally relevant to our audience: professional basketball. State Farm partnered with the National Basketball Association to connect with their audience through their passion.
Implementation
We cast two-time NBA assist leader Chris Paul to play Cliff Paul, his identical twin brother who’s also born to assist, but as a State Farm agent. Cliff was brought to life on TV, in social, and on the ground. During All-Star Weekend, we had Chris and Cliff make a special side-by-side cameo for the 8m fans watching the NBA. We encouraged fans to participate in the campaign by distributing Cliff Paul disguise kits and fatheads at select Clippers games. Our goal was to create conversation that would drive brand favorability and consideration.
Outcome
Cliff Paul took the nation by storm. 'Born to Assist' helped drive 15% growth in auto policies to date. It has ignited tremendous intrigue across culture, and helped the brand break through the otherwise cluttered world of sports sponsorships. Nike is even producing a limited-edition Cliff Paul sneaker. The character proved to be worthy of thousands of conversations: - @CliffPaul has over 24,000 followers and within minutes of the commercial launch became a trending topic on Twitter.- The commercial was viewed over 500,000 times in the first week of launch.- Cliff Paul has generated over 400m total Twitter impressions.
Relevancy
The 'Born to Assist' campaign leveraged a fun, yet powerful, analogy that enabled us to demonstrate the value of a State Farm agent through a highly celebrated playmaker in basketball. The shared language around 'assist' helped seamlessly bridge the two worlds, and the close association to Chris Paul made an otherwise traditional brand feel contemporary and cool.