Liberty Mutual has a new campaign running about doing the 'right thing.' The campaign follows a family faced with a number of difficult decisions. Should Grandpa go in a nursing home or move in with the family? Should the parents spy on their teenage daughter's online activity? How do you handle lay off in the family? Typical difficult decisions faced by a regular family. The first spot sets up the following two by outline the tough decisions the family has to make.
The trouble is, the following spots don't make much sense if you haven't seen the first one. I saw the parents spying on their daughter spot (below) first and was completely confused. As a stand alone it makes little sense, especially on how it relates to insurance. The text at the end is the only connection.
If you visit the corresponding site, ResponsibilityProject.com, you can see all five videos that follow the family through a variety of situations. They're almost like little mini homemade films shot by the hand held video camera of the youngest sibling and at the end you are asked to join the discussion. It doesn't seem like they have too many people discussing, although it's interesting to note they also have a section with articles of other controversial topics, from Rent as a high school musical to cloning puppies, and those articles are actually sparking some decent discussion on the site. More than the spots themselves it seems.
It's entirely possible that I saw the set up commercial before the daughter one, but glossed over it since it's pretty forgettable, and I remembered the daughter one only because it confused me. Overall, the campaign has a nice idea but it just seems to be trying to hard. I enjoyed Liberty Mutual's last campaign, which gave the same idea, but simplified it and managed to show you good deeds and responsible actions rather than tell you about them. Plus the execution of it was fantastic and I soon became a fan of the band from that soundtrack.
What do you think? Are these Liberty Mutual ads effective? Have you even noticed them?
1 comment:
I never saw the setup-- the first ad I actually saw was the son who caused an accident and then the ad about spying on the teenage daughter. They made no sense to me or my family at the time (thinking about it now, I remember their earlier "pay it forward" themed commercials: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw97CfZtyGw). Your blog post is the first I've seen of the setup commercial. I wonder if it ran as often and on the same networks as did the later ads.
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