Can you briefly introduce yourself?

Ron Adams Head of Marketing & Sales Allianz Direct. Active for more than 20 years in various Marketing & Sales positions within Insurers (Interpolis, Reaal Insurance, Allianz) and for more than 12.5 years at Allsecur / Allianz Direct since it went live in 2008. With my team we have developed Allsecur into one of the fastest growing Insurance Retail companies in Auto and now also in the field of Home insurance. Since October 2019 we have been rebranded to Allianz Direct. This makes us part of a European insurer/platform and enables us to achieve economies of scale on many fronts that we can translate back into benefits for our customers.

What is the background of your most recent commercial?

We want to make it clear that we are a broader insurer than just car insurance and that we therefore also have home insurance. All Allianz Direct products are quick, easy and simple to calculate and purchase because we know that today's consumers have 'Direct needs' and are looking for companies that can provide 'direct fulfillment'.

What was the main goal you wanted to achieve with this campaign and commercial?

The Allianz Direct brand is still fairly 'new' in the Dutch market, so we are still building spontaneous brand awareness. “Helped brand awareness” and “brand consideration” already show very good figures. In addition, there are also hard Sales KPIs associated with this campaign to grow even faster in Home Insurance and to sell more products to our existing customers.

Have these goals been achieved?

The campaign started at the end of August and the first signals (traffic, quotes and conversion) are very good. Brand awareness always takes a little more time.

When you look back on your transition from the previous main characters Tim & TIm Coronel to now Usain Bolt, how did this transition go?

This transition went very well and that is partly due to our old brand ambassadors Tim & Tom Coronel. They perfectly managed the brand transfer from Allsecur to Allianz Direct in 2 campaigns. The whole of the Netherlands could not have missed these campaigns! And then Usain Bolt took over and took the brand name to a more international level.

How is Usain Bolt being received as the face of your brand?

Before we started working with a new brand ambassador, we naturally did a lot of international research. Usain Bolt fits perfectly with our new brand positioning and emerged as an ideal Brand Ambassador in all countries. In addition, he can also act very well and is a source of inspiration for many target groups. So we couldn't have asked for better!

You are expanding internationally, how is this going and what are the next steps?

We don't just make these campaigns for the Netherlands. The Allianz Direct campaigns will also be run in Germany and later also in Italy and Spain. That is why we always extensively test the concept idea and its final implementation before we go live in a specific country. In addition, we are already looking at other possible markets within and outside Europe. The ambition of Allianz Direct is therefore great.

What do you think are the biggest trends in marketing right now?

I think that Online and Social are now going to accelerate completely because of Covid-19 and that for a company culture is one of the most important things to focus on. Happy employees = happy customers. And keep investing in innovation 'Fail fast and learn fast!'

The results of the commercial on our platform

We submitted the Allianz Direct commercial to our panel at commercialreview.nl and it received an average score of 7.4

Some initial thoughts from reviewers upon seeing the commercial:

“Nice, calm advertising, you don't turn the TV down or off for that. It's clear what they want to say.”

“Hip insurer that focuses a lot on speed.”

“Well thought out how to connect Usain to an insurance company.”