What it had to solve
Two 45-second direct-response TV spots for Travel Insurance and Mortgage & Rent Safe Insurance, part of a suite of four created with production company Flying Fish.
How it works
Directed by James Solomon, each TVC features a different bespoke machine: a coloured marble makes its way through category-relevant settings — such as a shelf full of overseas souvenirs for Travel Insurance. Flying Fish constructed the complex builds and shot them over a three-day period.
What it did
Two further TVCs were released later in 2016; Y&R NZ argued the watchable storytelling gave cut-through in a DRTV category not known for it — ads 'watchable time and again'.
Background
Cigna Insurance New Zealand's campaign via Y&R New Zealand employed Rube Goldberg machines — over-engineered contraptions that perform a simple task in a complicated fashion, usually via chain reaction — to illustrate how unpredictable life can be and how Cigna helps get things back on track.
Two 45-second spots launched for Travel Insurance and Mortgage & Rent Safe Insurance, each built around a different bespoke machine. Directed by James Solomon for production company Flying Fish, one machine sends a coloured marble through category-relevant settings — a shelf of overseas souvenirs standing in for the destinations Travel Insurance covers. The builds were constructed for each spot and shot over three days.
CMO Suzanne de Geus framed the challenge as introducing the expanded product range to a broader audience than ever, with the Rube Goldberg model chosen as the ideal way to depict preparing for the unexpected. Two more TVCs followed later in 2016 as part of the same suite.
Why it lands
The machine is the metaphor made physical: one small cause topples through escalating consequences, exactly what insurance underwrites.
Chain reactions reward rewatching — rare in direct-response TV, where repetition usually decays into irritation.
Category-specific set dressing (souvenir shelves for travel) lets each product get its own film without changing the format.
What you can take
Insurance sells preparation for chaos: a machine whose entire point is over-complication dramatizes the risk better than any testimonial.
Since then
The suite continued with two more TVCs later in 2016; LBB's write-up recorded no performance figures.
FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE