Monday, February 02, 2009

Zurich Financial Services "Friday the 13th"

It's a common belief the friday the 13th is a good day for bad things to happen. It turns out, it's also a good day to advertise insurance. Using the old cliché of a flower pot accidentally falling on your car, they turned to the streets to create something memorable. On the morning of friday the 13th, people woke up to find rows of broken flower pots strewn across the city sidewalks. As they look closer, they saw small, well branded signs that read: "Today is friday the 13th. Are you well insured? Zurich. Because change happens." In addition to the signs, they created branded flower labels that doubled as vouchers. Each voucher was good for a complimentary consultation with a Zurich insurance expert waiting in the Zurich agency just 100 meters away. In general, the typically conservative Swiss were very amused, surprised and pleased with the promotion. They noticed a number of people taking pictures with their mobile phones, wich were then found on local blogs. By end of the day, the Swiss and german press had picked up the sory both online and in print. As the installation was being removed, people were still asking for vouchers. A very lucky few even went home with fresh flowers. Best of all, Zurich reported a spike in consultation requests the entire "unlucky" day.

Agency: Publicis Zurich, Switzerland.