BUMBLEBEE AND DIRECT LINE: ‘WE’RE ON IT’ CAMPAIGN
LICENSING TRANSFORMERS FOR DIRECT LINE
BACKGROUND:
For six years Direct Line featured Harvey Keitel as his Pulp Fiction character Winston ‘The Wolf’ Wolf in their advertising. Despite it being hugely successful, a change was needed in order to focus on the future and build salience around the brand. Direct Line wanted to further demonstrate how they can react quickly to problems their customers can experience, such as leaky pipes, broken down cars or stolen laptops. To do this they needed to completely overhaul the creative.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT:
Over the course of many months, we presented and explored over 150 different movie, TV and cartoon characters that were either problems solvers, known for being incredibly intelligent or considered superheroes. As the creative team whittled down the list, we engaged with Rights Holders to walk them through the creative direction and negotiate the commercial terms should their character be chosen.
THE CALL TO BORN:
Direct Line’s creative agency Saatchi & Saatchi reached out to us with the incredibly strong creative direction of ‘We’re On It’. The idea was to showcase Direct Line as being so ‘on it’, so fast, so efficient and so reliable that they would beat even the most iconic and well-known hero characters to solve the problem. Our job was to help them explore the different famous characters that could feature in the campaign.
WHERE BORN LICENSING ADDED VALUE:
The final three characters chosen were Bumblebee from the Transformers franchise, Donatello from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and RoboCop. As Born Licensing are licensing agents for Hasbro, Viacom Nickelodeon and MGM we negotiated the licensing commercial terms and managed all other aspects of the project from start to finish without charging any clearance fees. We are able to do this thanks to our unique business model and strong appointed agency relationship with each of the Rights Holders.
THE SHOOT:
Born Licensing’s David Born attended the shoot in Cape Town and was on site to help Saatchi & Saatchi and Direct Line with any licensing related issues throughout. While on set he had the opportunity to have his photo taken with Bumblebee himself in Beetle form!
THE APPROVAL PROCESS:
Hasbro, the Licensors of the Transformers brand, had to be kept in the loop across all creative development. This included the script, storyboards, still poses, edits and final material. The development of Bumblebee came in post-production and involved the use of assets from the 2018 Bumblebee film. We worked with Paramount Pictures and ILM to ensure all required assets were available to incorporate into the material. Throughout the development we submitted updates to Hasbro to confirm they were comfortable with the progress. Born Licensing also managed the clearance of the Beetle car, which required approval from Volkswagen.Born Licensing managed the entire approval process from start to finish, allowing all other parties to focus on what they do best.
THE LAUNCH:
The campaign launched with a world-first ad break takeover across both TV and VOD simultaneously on ITV, Channel 4 and Sky. Starting with a bespoke intro per channel, followed by one 60 second and two 30 second ads running in the same TV break. The launch moment alone was set to reach 7.5 million people. Following the TV launch was the out of home material which included 48 sheet posters and bus advertising.
THE EXPERIENCE:
Born Licensing worked on this for almost 12 months prior to the campaign going live. We managed the entire licensing process from start to finish, including research and development, negotiation of commercial terms, the contractual process, invoicing, the brand assurance/approval process, and everything else that came up relating to the use of Bumblebee.
© 2020 Hasbro. © 2020 Paramount Pictures Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
THE RESULTS:
Winner of Grand Prix Award at Marketing Week Masters
20% more effective at driving quotes and sales than Direct Line’s previous campaign ‘The Fixer’
Short-term ROI improved by 4%
Lifted spontaneous awareness by 6 points
Lifted first choice consideration by 2 points
Advertising recognition of 62% for Bumblebee (Kantar norm 33%)
+3.8 points on ‘are best at solving problems’ brand association
+4.7 points on ‘goes beyond what you would expect from an insurer’ association
+4.2 points on ‘will sort out claims more efficiently than any other insurance providers’
#1 advertiser in insurance category - System1 star rating
Winner of Licensed Promotion at LIMA Awards
THE EXPERIENCE
Born Licensing worked on this for almost 12 months prior to the campaign going live. We managed the entire licensing process from start to finish, including research and development, negotiation of commercial terms, the contractual process, invoicing, the brand assurance / approval process and everything else that came up relating to the use of RoboCop.
“Working with the Born Licensing team was a total pleasure. We had a tricky situation in terms of time and creative - this together with our fair share US based rights holders & estates to contend with. Born Licensing’s calm approach together with their existing extensive knowledge of many rights holders helped us find our way through. Born licensing went over and above to deliver what was needed (including literally running contracts around town themselves to ensure signature and sign offs!) They are now my go to for anything licensing related.”
“From creative development, through rights holders fee and usage negotiations to final contracts, the expertise, knowledge and support of David and the team at Born Licensing were invaluable in being able to deliver the Campaign. They took the time to truly understand the Client and Agency creative, the usage requirements and the budgets and were a key partner in the process. I would not hesitate to recommend them to anyone looking to licence IP.”
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