Thai Life Insurance Plc., in Bangkok, Thailand, received the Gold Stevie® Award for Consumer Advertising Campaign of the Year in the marketing awards categories of The 2012 International Business Awards, the world's premier business awards competition. (10 April is the early-bird entry deadline for the 2013 IBAs, take advantage of discounted entry fees for those entries submitted by 10 April, request your entry kit here. Interested in similar business award categories? The Stevie Awards now manage the IPRA Golden World Awards, which will be accepting entries through 20 May.) We look at how Thai Life’s ad campaign touched the hearts of millions.

Population statistics from a 2010 survey found that Thailand's population composition has changed significantly over the last 10 years. Thai society is aging and the 0-14 age group has proportionately decreased compared to seniors aged 60 years and up. This trend is a consequence of the decline in Thailand’s birthrate and the fact that Thais are living longer, higher-quality lives.

Because of this, many life insurance companies in Thailand have shifted their focus in order to communicate with seniors and to create customized insurance products for them.

A Different Approach
While also providing insurance products for seniors, Thai Life chose a different approach to their competitors: they focused on employed adults and their duty to their elderly parents.

Working with Ogilvy & Mather Thailand, Thai Life created an advertising campaign that communicated the message to working adults that purchasing life insurance for their parents would be a way for them to repay the kindness that their elderly parents had showed to them.

This strategy has been a powerful one. Today’s employed adults devote ever larger amounts of their life to work, leaving less time for expressing their love for their families and parents. The reality of modern life in Thailand has meant that long-standing traditions of parental care and family relationships are now crumbling.

This trend has adversely affected Thai Life’s core business. The family unit is the main source of business for the company, with most people purchasing life insurance as a source of security for the family.

Thai Life insurance decided to use the issues of gratitude, and of faithfully repaying a parent’s kindness, as a way of getting through to their target audience.   Thai Life’s advertising campaign helped its customers to appreciate the value of taking care of their parents’ well being.

The Value of Life
Thai Life took an emotional approach. They used the story of a single deaf-mute father desperately trying to bring up a troubled teenage daughter. The climax of the story proved how, in the end, money or material possessions are not means to regain a daughter’s love: it’s the way the father proves his love towards her. The message stimulates the audience into thinking about the value of life (the insurance moment) and to get people to take action by “taking care of those who take care of you.” 

Excellent Results
When the “Silence of Love” campaign was uploaded to YouTube it received over a million views in the first week.  It also received over 730,000 shares on Facebook.  The campaign generated 7,153 phone inquiries during August-September 2011 resulting in over 1,154 new policies, with a premium value of approximately US $303,125, being sold by telesales during that same period. Additionally, over 962 new policies with a premium value of approximately US $2,758,900 were sold during the period July-December 2011 via sales agents. 

Awards
The Thai Life “Silence of Love” campaign has received a number of awards, including Best TV Campaign over 90 seconds, Best Director, and Best Copywriting from the 2011 Bangkok Art Directors’ awards show, and a Bronze Award in the Corporate Image category from the 2011 Spikes Asia Awards.  Additionally, “Silence of Love” was named Top Talk-About Advertisement in the 2012 Mthai Top Talk-About Awards, organized by www.mthai.com.

About Thai Life Insurance Plc:
Thai Life Insurance Plc. is proud to be a leader in providing unique products and services. It's the first Thai-owned insurance to support Thai people by offering products that meet the client needs. This is confirmed by the company’s mission to be "More Than Just Life Insurance."

Slack and Company, an integrated marketing communications agency in Chicago, Illinois, USA, was named Marketing Agency of the Year in the 2012 Best of the ABA Awards as part of The American Business Awards, the premier business awards competition in the USA. Introduced in 2012, the Best of the ABA Awards are five best-of-competition prizes that are awarded to the organizations that submit the best body of work to the competition, in their own name or in the names of one or more clients. Here is Slack and Company's award-winning submission for Business-to-Business Advertising Campaign of the Year, submitted in the marketing awards categories of The 2012 American Business Awards. (The entry deadline for the 2013 ABAs is March 27, request your entry kit here and it will be emailed to you right away.)

Marketing Challenge
To keep its lead in the paper shredder market, Fellowes needed to:

• Achieve more brand visibility;
• Drive home the differences between its shredders and the competition; and
• Generate more traffic for channel-partner stores and websites.

Communications Strategy
An integrated program was created featuring the iconic bulldog mascot, who sets up messages that emphasize the core performance advantages of Fellowes’ lineup of tough and reliable shredders.

The “Bred to Shred” campaign was developed to build awareness and drive action using a mix of media including television and radio, targeted print, airport dioramas, and mobile/online ads supported by strategic search engine optimization and search engine marketing (SEO/SEM).

Although primarily a North American campaign, the television, print, and digital advertising was transcreated and went on to run throughout Europe.

Outstanding Results
The program has strengthened Fellowes’ best-in-breed reputation for reliable, jam-free shredding—and sparked demonstrable buyer interest. In its first seven weeks, the campaign was responsible for a significant traffic uptick at retail-partner websites and boosted visits to the Fellowes site by more than 13%. Total click-through rates from online media averaged 1.06%, sending hundreds of thousands of new shredder shoppers to retail-partner websites.

“With creative magic and strategic, integrated thinking from Slack, we've been better able grow our brand visibility, delight our channel partners, and protect our market leadership,” said Maureen Moore, Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Fellowes.

"The Slack and Company team is grateful for this recognition from our peers in the business world,” said Ron Klingensmith, Chief Creative Officer at Slack and Company.  “It shows just how powerful a tool integrated marketing can be in regional, national, and international markets."

About Ron Klingensmith:
Ron Klingensmith is Chief Creative Officer of Slack and Company, and has worked with the company for 20 years. Ron's strategically driven creative work has earned awards (Tower, Pro-Comm, CEBA) for countless clients. Not only that, he has mentored scores of seasoned creatives, who can be found working throughout Chicago’s ad community.

Before joining Slack and Company, Ron spent nearly a decade at consumer agencies, including a five-year stint at J. Walter Thompson. This consumer sensibility, combined with Ron's love for strategy, is a major reason why Slack and Company’s creative product is so people-friendly, while still driving measurable results.

About Slack and Company:
Slack and Company is an integrated marketing communications agency that works exclusively with business marketers to build strong brands and create profitable demand. Founded in 1988 and based in Chicago, Slack and Company now has additional offices in Singapore and Sweden. In addition to being honored in the ABAs, Slack and Company was also named Marketing Agency of the Year in the 2012 Best of the IBA Awards as part of The International Business Awards, the world's premier business awards competition.  

About Fellowes:
Fellowes’ mission is to provide innovative workspace solutions to help people work more securely, comfortably, and productively.  Founded in 1917 by Harry Fellowes and headquartered in Itasca, Illinois, Fellowes, Inc. employs more than 1,200 people throughout the world and has operations in sixteen countries. Fellowes products are now readily available in over 100 countries across the globe.

Fellowes, Inc. is the global leader in paper shredder design and engineering, providing the highest quality personal and general office business shredders on the market. Known as the “World’s Toughest Shredders™”, the company is notable for inventing the personal shredder and as being the only one to offer 100 percent Jam Proof technology.