#MARKiesAwards 2021 highlight: MSIG hits the jackpot with choose-your-own-adventure film

The insurance industry is filled with several renowned brands competing to capture consumers' attention. Instead of using the tried and tested method of tugging at heartstrings or pushing out discounts and lowering prices, MSIG Singapore worked with That Marketing Guy for a choose-your-own-adventure film titled "Help Me Leh". The aim was to make insurance fun and lighthearted and allow consumers to interact with possible scenarios that they might face in real life. This led the team to win the bronze award for Most Creative – Customer Engagement at MARKETING-INTERACTIVE’s recent MARKies Awards 2021.

Challenge

In a competitive industry such as insurance, MSIG faces stiff competition as it seeks to stand out from amidst the near-similar general insurance plans. In such a commoditised industry where consumers get lost in a sea of sameness, MSIG faces the challenge of building familiarity with consumers, especially when they are used to insurers that offer both life and general insurance, unlike MSIG which specialises in the latter. 

According to MSIG, competitors usually use one of two marketing approaches - emotional and logical. It is either emotion that plays a big part in driving decisions, with many campaigns designed to tug at consumers’ heartstrings, or logic that sees the brand pushing rational messages such as price or discounts. To cut through the noise, and with MSIG’s tagline of “insurance that sees the heart in everything” as the brand's clarion call, it adopted a different approach to make insurance fun, digestible and educational.

Strategy

Making the right choice with the right insurance protection can make a difference in one's situation. Working with That Marketing Guy, MSIG conceptualised "Help Me Leh", a marketing campaign that sought to spread the message in a light-hearted manner and was anchored creatively through an interactive, choose-your-own-adventure film. This was inspired by the retro choose-your-own-adventure books that was popularised in recent years by Netflix's Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. However, MSIG's version was much more complex.

The insurer scripted 19 story arcs and seven separate endings to encompass MSIG's six key product lines: cancer, personal accident, car, home liability, home content and renovation and overseas medical insurance. The interactive film follows the various decisions that its male protagonist, Chris, makes as he finds himself in sticky situations involving the two important women in his life – his mum and his wife. A touch slapdash, and mimicking scenarios that many couples can relate to easily and empathise with, the video series encouraged conversation and participation by Chris, directly appealing to viewers for help at each open-ended scene before the next turn in the story.

The core premise of the campaign revolves around how decisions affect people’s lives, each choice and journey reveals a different storyline, with the unexpected twist of each plot helping to contextualise the importance of general insurance protection as the story unfolds. Bite-sized tips were included to help viewers better understand what insurance covers reinforce the message, and enable calls-to-action without being in viewers’ faces. Singlish and localised humour was also used deliberately to introduce levity and inject positivity.

Execution

Casting Chris, a bespectacled lanky Millennial with a knack for comic timing, was a no-brainer. According to MSIG, the face he pulls at the end of each scenario which says, “Help me leh” without actually mouthing the words made it seem the part was tailor-made for him. With this novel video format as the campaign anchor, the insurer drove traffic to the campaign microsite via social media platforms, TV, and OOH ads. These included 414 digital screens located in young neighbourhoods: Sengkang South, Sengkang West and Punggol East as well as an additional 17 screens in condominiums.

Videos are often created as a one-way communication. Here, consumers get to decide on how the story will play out which makes it more engaging for them to watch on. The unique storytelling format also helps to bring better recall as they are in control of the character’s decisions, SVP, consumers and digital distribution, Steven Leong, said. 

At the same time, a series of teasers were posted on social media to spark conversations on the viewers’ everyday choices. This was complemented by an influencer campaign involving Michelle Chong, Jaze Phua and Nina Tan, who were chosen because of their comic personalities. The influencers were tasked to design posts around the theme of making choices as guerilla teasers.

To further amplify the campaign, MSIG also bought two sponsored editorials on Mothership.sg. One focused on the marital woes of young couples, in order to sell the plot of Help Me Leh. The other was an adulting guide breaking down the jargon commonly used in insurance that doubled as an educational piece to help Mothership readers make more informed insurance-purchasing decisions. To further drum up interest and encourage its viewers to complete all seven storylines in the film, MSIG also gave away SG$5,000 worth of prizes. The hashtag #helpmeleh was used as a unifying marker for the campaign.

Ultimately, the team had to shoot a total of 19 videos over three consecutive days in order to maximise everyone’s time. That said, the team also faced some technical challenges when coding the site. With such complex user journeys, MSIG said the backend necessarily became rather complicated. This needed to be streamlined, however, to create a clean, minimal user interface so viewers could enjoy helping Chris through his dilemmas without having the pleasure stolen away by clunky or unfriendly user experiences.

It had initially planned a collage condensed into a few seconds as a teaser but decided on filming brand new scenes after the preview. MSIG said this worked out better. The teaser ad featured the toilet bowl scenario after Chris eats some contaminated food in Batam, and that very scenario became the ending most users reached.

Results

The campaign garnered more than 40 million in total reach and more than 410,000 video views. Its microsite amassed more than 240,000 visits and an average engagement rate of at least 9%. In total, MSIG said the campaign helped grow its market share across its various product lines by more than 120% from home insurance and personal accident insurance to maid insurance.

Sandra Tan, AVP, marketing said the campaign helped improve and increase its bottom-funnel conversions and propel sales during the campaign period beyond expectations. Its interactive concept and engaging content provided a new approach to educating the public about general insurance products and what to look out for when purchasing a plan, and understand what’s claimable, Tan added.