Direct Line for Business was struggling to drive awareness and reach the right people in the small business sector. They wanted a creative digital campaign that would increase their visibility amongst target audiences and generate qualified leads for their liability insurance.

By closely analysing the online behaviours of our target audience (builders, plumbers and small business owners), we got to know who they were, where they were active and what type of content they engaged with. Video was by far the most popular content type – in particular, pranks and “laddish” humour. With the Olympics on the horizon, we also identified an opportunity to take advantage of the feverish media attention around this event. These insights combined to directly inform our creative strategy.

Putting these insights into practice, we developed the Trade Olympics, a series of hilarious short videos that showed tradesman competing in different Olympic events while simulating exaggerated carelessness on building sites. These were shot in “UGC style” to provide an authentic look and feel and used CGI to bring the extra drama. Teaming up with On The Tools to help promote the videos, they quickly went viral on social media, generating millions of views and thousands of shares. All while highlighting, in a fun way, the need for liability insurance.