I was listening to the radio yesterday and an Ethos Life Insurance commercial came on. A woman tells a story of how her husband passed away unexpectedly without life insurance leaving the family in the lurch. Now normally you’d expect the actress’s voiceover to be sullen and emotional, perhaps a bit weepy. But not in this spot. She was detached. Matter of fact. I’m glad she got over the passing so well; it was, in fact, a refreshing and unexpected take. Unexpected improves attention.
And this got me thinking about what would happen if she was a little emotional but in a different way. What if she was put out, even angry. That’s human. The spot may have had more of an impact on husbands — buyers of life insurance.
Advertisers like to test this sort of thing. And the approach might not go over well in focus groups. Smart package goods companies will tell you distasteful scenarios in advertising can transfer to the to the advertiser but in this story my bet is it will land on the husband.
Slippery slope, maybe. I would probably do some quantitative research. Thats said, I wouldn’t be surprised if this approach rocked policy metrics.
Always thinkin’.
