What it had to solve
A humorous 60-second spot, 'Welcome to the World', taking an unconventional look at how family financial planning begins.
The idea
Shoot the birth of family financial planning as an actual birth: the father is the one who needs consoling, guided by a deadpan gardener played by Demetri Martin.
How it works
Director Kim Nguyen put a father-to-be with a far-from-steel stomach into the delivery room chaos, with Demetri Martin as an insightful gardener and off-screen voice of reason to a soon-to-be father of three.
What it did
No results reported; the spot marked a new creative direction for New York Life, playing the ironic truth that the father often needs more hand-holding than the wife who just gave birth.
Background
In September 2016, LBB covered 'Welcome to the World', a comedic 60-second spot for New York Life Insurance out of Anomaly NY, directed by Kim Nguyen of production company Backyard. The spot 'peers in on the gut-wrenching turmoil of child birth for fathers' — a father-to-be in the delivery room struggling with a stomach that is far less than steel.
The ever-imaginative staging casts comedian Demetri Martin, in dry wit mode, as an insightful gardener and off-screen voice of reason to a soon-to-be father of three. The combination 'captures the financial worries, fear, and distinct labour pains fathers face' amid the chaos of the delivery room, LBB wrote.
The spot closes on its ironic punchline: the father often needs more consolation and hand-holding than his wife — who just experienced the physical agony of giving birth. It was the first collaboration between the director and the brand, and marked a new creative direction for New York Life.
Why it lands
The spot literalizes its metaphor — the 'birth' of financial planning — instead of narrating it.
Casting a deadpan comedian as a gardener in a delivery-room scene gives the insurer a distinctive comic voice.
The joke carries the product's point: new parenthood is exactly when families need life insurance.
What you can take
Insurance dread lands funnier when the genre is flipped: put the man in the hospital bed's emotional equivalent and let a deadpan bystander sell the life stage.
Since then
The spot ran as part of New York Life's 'Be Good At Life' campaign push, with editorial by Arcade Edit; no performance results were published in the coverage.
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