The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2025
Centivo's 'How Dare We' makes decency the B2B healthcare pitch
A health-plan startup flipped 'how dare you' into a defiant brand line and lifted awareness, search and site traffic in a category built on jargon.
Centivo
What it had to solve
Centivo is a health plan for self-funded employers built around free primary care and low, predictable costs. Its buyers — HR leaders and brokers — are bombarded with identical, opaque messaging from giants, and the product story is hard to compress. For its first brand-awareness push, the startup chose a stance: tell the blunt truth about what is broken in U.S. healthcare and treat doing right by patients as a daring act.
How it works
Centivo is a challenger health plan for self-funded employers, built around free primary care, no deductibles and predictable low copays. Its buyers — HR leaders and brokers — sit in one of the most cynical, attention-poor categories in American business, flooded by near-identical claims from giant insurers. For its first-ever brand awareness campaign, the startup decided the message had to be moral as much as functional.
Agency Territorial built the 'How Dare We' platform on a rallying cry that flips a familiar accusation into a declaration of values: how dare we make healthcare affordable, how dare we treat workers like humans, how dare we tell the truth. The longform film and its digital variations ran across CTV, online video, LinkedIn CTV, social and branded search. One stunt put Centivo's senior medical director in a real salon chair as a surprise stylist, letting clients feel that they trust their hairdresser more than their doctor.
The results moved the whole funnel: 5.5 million employers and brokers reached, a 6% brand-awareness lift with positive movement after one to three impressions, branded search up 1.6x during the flight, website traffic up 91%, plus webinar signups and qualified opportunities where the campaign appeared as a touchpoint. The work won Best B2B Campaign at the 2026 Webby Awards.
Why it lands
- The rallying cry made a complex value proposition instant: 'how dare we make healthcare affordable' carries the whole model without a feature list.
- One defiant line repeated across CTV, LinkedIn, social and search delivered frequency without re-explaining the product.
- The salon stunt dramatized the trust insight — people trust their stylist more than their doctor — instead of asserting it.
- The campaign tracked awareness, branded search, traffic and qualified opportunities, so brand spend could prove itself down the funnel.
What it did
Centivo reports the campaign reached 5.5 million employers and brokers across CTV, online video, Meta and LinkedIn; delivered a 6% brand-awareness lift, with positive lift after just one to three impressions; raised branded search 1.6x during the flight; and grew website traffic 91%, alongside webinar signups and qualified opportunities attributed to the campaign. It won Best B2B Campaign at the 2026 Webby Awards.
What you can take
In a category drowning in sameness, a stance beats a spec sheet: Centivo's 'how dare we' line carried a complex product story, and awareness, search and demand all moved.
Since then
How Dare We became Centivo's brand platform and won Best B2B Campaign at the 30th Annual Webby Awards in April 2026. The company's campaign site still makes the same argument to employers — free primary care, no deductible, two-thirds of members spending under $100 a year out of pocket — and the challenger keeps pointing at what it says incumbents will not do: treat workers like humans and tell the truth about cost.
Sources
- Centivo 'How Dare We': A bold B2B Brand Platform for a health plan that dares to be decent
- Centivo launch how dare we campaign
- How Dare We | Centivo's Mission to Fix Employer Healthcare
- The advertising, media, and PR award winners from the 30th annual Webby Awards
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