Best online publication

Ageas is the insurance company nobody has heard of. It is Britain’s third largest car insurer and sixth biggest home insurer but, because it sells through intermediaries, consumer recognition is low. Following a decision to take its brand direct to the consumer in 2018, Ageas needed to transform its communications approach. Rather than traditional marketing, it opted to do so through content marketing.

The campaign’s objectives were to create content that drives honest conversations around issues its customers cared about. Simultaneously, it had to sell insurance policies by driving traffic to www.ageas.co.uk, with a target of 25 per cent uplift each month, and provide content that assisted customers’ research phase.

The issue that faced Ageas was that it is late to the game. Other insurance companies and aggregators have been using content marketing as a communications tool for years – this meant its content had to stand out. It also had no additional marketing budget and no consumer database to distribute content.

Research identified two audiences most likely to buy direct. They had one thing in common: children living at home. Further research, involving competitor content audits, gap analysis and social listening, revealed insurers are not trusted. Solving insurance-related problems was key to standing out.

From these findings, content hub Solved was born. The brand newsroom was developed to enable always-on, real time and planned content, underpinned by data, and boosted by quarterly campaigns across content, SEO, PR and influencers.

Ageas’ own data revealed that the spiralling cost of driving lessons meant more parents were adding their children to their car insurance policies and teaching them to drive – with all their own bad habits. To highlight this issue, agency BrandContent filmed influencer parents teaching their children to drive, unaware that their backseat passenger was an undercover driving instructor. A series of videos and a blooper film were released. Within four weeks, the videos had been viewed more than 188,000 times – driving 16,000 potential customers to the website.

Other campaigns involved a Facebook 360º video which highlighted the surprising value of home contents, after it emerged that customers regularly undervalue these which can lead to negative PR when insurers refuse to settle claims, and a step-by-step video illustrating how to buckle up a family pet while driving.

Three new items are put up on the site every week, ranging from guides answering specific insurance claims, infographics, quizzes and data-led or topical features, such as a series on the dangers of subsidence during the UK heatwave.

Within the first 100 days, Solved brought more than 46,000 potential new customers to the website, drove more than 65,000 views of the content and delivered a 4,810 per cent increase in monthly users. More than two per cent of all visitors click to get quotes.

‘This is a publication which is led by its objectives, which are all pitched to results,’ said the judges. ‘This is a case of ‘most read’ articles to drive click throughs – but it’s all engaging content.’