NRMA: the power of words left unsaid

Creatives have been having fun with insurance for a long time, trying to make a boring and heartless industry seem fun, interesting and relatable.

From geckos to meerkats and progressive Kitty, insurance companies have been building irreverent brand voice and personality into their marketing for a few years now. But when you don’t have a funny, irreverent brand, how do you stay relevant? How do you make a brand stand apart using a brand voice that is straight-forward and traditional?

NRMA has managed to achieve just that. By keeping a single-minded focus on their central core purpose and message of ‘help’, they’ve built brand equity so that they continue to stand apart. And their latest campaign is an excellent example of how to build that unique positioning using a straightforward, traditional brand voice very very powerfully.

The tone

NRMA’s latest campaign is an excellent study in subtext. As in, how to not say something, and in doing so, make a bigger statement than actually saying it. Confused? Let’s show you how they did it.

Every sentence is left unfinished, leaving the reader to fill in the gaps. We’re left to make our own connection that the thing they are saying will never actually happen, and so it goes WITHOUT saying that NRMA will always be there to help.

The brand voice here is confident. Simple. Intelligent. It trusts that its audience will know the answer, and it’s correct.

This campaign works because we already have the established association of NRMA = HELP (thanks to years of big-budget advertising), and in case there ever was any doubt, the clever adaptation of the NRMA brand mark to HELP, explains it all

What works

Relevance

Highly relevant topics, but without opinion.

Trust

The brand trusts that we ‘get it’. In turn, with the simplicity of the image and copy, we trust this brand.

Repetition

The repetition of the word ‘Until’ hooks this campaign together. The word holds us in suspense, and lets our minds drift to and anticipate other circumstances where we might need help.

The tone

Find the repeatable idea

One execution of this ad works well. Applied to multiple different scenarios – bush fires, blown tires, climate change – it’s genius. See if the same word/phrase can be repeated throughout the different executions.

Don’t get too tricky

Arguably, this is a tricky ad. Between the subtext and reliance on brand awareness, it is complex. But it’s expressed in simple language. It doesn’t try for humour or relatability or explanations. It falls back on its purpose, and that makes it stand out.

Analysis by Brooke Hill

Agency: Bear Meets Eagle on Fire

This analysis was featured in our 2023 edition of VoiceCraft, an annual report covering brand voices with big impact.

The 2024 edition is out now – download it here.