Singapore Life becomes first local brand to use ‘live birth’ in advertising campaign

Generic nonsense with no strategy….I wouldn’t like, much less share or comment on social media.

Really? Generic? No strategy? Either you’re a bot, or you have no soul. I mean, it’s my ad, so of course I’d say that. But happy to step up and defend my work (and the sound strategy that led to it) rather than hide behind a mask of anonymity 😉

Yes…that’s exactly what everyone thinks off when a baby pops out:
Life Insurance.

Not how am I going to afford to raise this kid and put her through school, university and be a good parent and hope she doesn’t take the wrong path in life.

The wrong path in life…Like work in advertising and end up embittered and griping on Mumbrella 😉
Interestingly the ad strategy came out of the UI/UX personas – super interesting. The interviews all showed that, while women researched life insurance, it’s the men who usually buy it, usually motivated by a life event. Particularly the “oh snap, now I’m a dad and suddenly have another tiny person relying on me”.

“Interestingly the ad strategy came out of the UI/UX personas – super interesting.”

LOL. Here we go again with the gratuitous digital term dropping.

You really need to conduct interviews to figure out that insurance is never top of mind till a significant event happens….either to the purchaser or someone they know?

Oh, snap.

Is it a boy? Is it a girl? No, it’s life insurance. Makes sense.

Basically a 30 second idea that drags on for 2min 46 seconds with tons of repetitive footage to tick the multiracial PC box. Theres no story here, so how is one supposed to feel any emotion? Another bland ad trying to stand out using B&W.

“ticking a multi racial pc box” what a synical view of Singaporean multiculturalism. It’s 2017. People are diverse. And that’s ok. Get over it.

Love this, just stunning, made me cry !

Unfortunately there is no strategy behind this.
There is a rationale by an agency on why the client should approve this concept.
It merely seeds in punters ‘the need for insurance’.
It doesn’t convince the viewer ‘why they should choose Singapore Life’.
I’ve never heard of Singapore Life until yesterday so why should I talk to you instead of Prudential, GE, NTUC Income or the other names that come more readily to mind.
Track record, history of returns and financial strength matter when choosing an insurance company.
Failure to differentiate between a creative rationale and business strategy is a common blindness among creatives.

It’s the genre of work that needs explanatory prefixing on the lines of “Sg’s first live childbirth for an ad”. Take that away, and you have nothing. Greenaway

I’m delighted to hear you’d never heard is SingLife before yesterday. Because it launched yesterday. So if nothing else we’ve 1) made you aware of the new brand in a VERY crowded life insuarance market 2) got you talking about it. Not quite job done YET, but a good start IMHO. And if we were expecting a 3-Minute online film ALONE to get people to sign up for life insuarance, well, we wouldn’t be doing our jobs 😉

“The moment in life when you realise you need LIFE”

Possibly one of the worst puns in recent time.

Says absolutely nothing.

What do you expect from a regional CCO like Ted? He’s been writing copy like this for years, so no surprise he even approves it when written by one of his flunks. Even Neil Johnson writes better copy than him.

Agreed. No way Ted Lim could have been CCO on something as fascinating as Neil’s Majulah Mummys. Ted is Move-in Martin’s daddy.

So here’s some past interview with Dentsu Singapore CCO Teddy’s new flunk, Greenaway. And don’t miss the very peculiar grin while you’re scanning it.:

http://www.marketing-interactive.com/creative-catch-sapientnitros-andy-greenaway/

Two extracts from that interview, each accompanied by a question:

Marketing-Interactive: A mistake in your career you won’t forget?
Greenaway: Staying in advertising for far too long.
Question: Why did the Sapient sacking see you back in advertising instead of another digital gig? There’s no CORE digital idea in this insurance film, in case you’d have us believe you’re pioneering digital transformation at Dentsu. Being from KL, poor Teddy’s digital exploration began and ended at Low Yatt Towers.

Marketing-Interactive: What’s the most frustrating thing about being a creative?
Greenaway: Seeing beautiful, compelling ideas killed by clients who either have no taste or no ambition.
Question: Is this a beautiful compelling idea for Singapore Life or the substitute after client killed your original one? In case of the latter, couldn’t your second best idea have been as beautiful and compelling as the first one presented?

Yeah, I remember that read in Marketing-Interactive and was wondering what he’d have to say when he finally had to come back to an agency with his begging bowl.

This is interesting.

His mentors then: Alan Paige. Chris Jones. Drayton Bird. Bruce Matchett. Neil French.
His mentor now: Ted Lim

Reminds me of the Michael Corleone sketch: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in”

[Edited under Mumbrella’s community standards]

I guess we all have to put bread on the table.

Yeah. Mustang before the cart.

The film is the tent pole. It’s also backed by programatic, social and mobile ads, and a whole heap of well-researched ui/ux. And, to the client’s credit, i think it’s much better than the original idea we presented (which WAS funny, but on reflection a bit confusing). And despite your rather mean-spirited ad hominem attacks (all water off a ducks back 😉 , Andy knows how digital advertising works inside out. And Ted wants great work, which is all a cd like me wants from a CCO.

Please don’t make this sound like some esoteric digital that’s beyond everyone’s grasp but yours. It’s clearly a film designed to start a conversation. I don’t think it will….except for predictable comments like “made me cry”…”so touching” from people who click on everything in FB…whether people queue up to buy his another matter. All the social and mobile ads you speak of, I know exactly what they’ll be…a B&W picture of a mum straining her sphincter with a variation of puns on LIFE. A few landing pages with the same treatment…and below them, the same insurance hogwash. Thats not digital, its just ads on computers and phones.

Whether its sapient or dentsu the level of cliches remains high. We enable digital transformation, the most easily dropped phrase with nothing to prove it. Nothing wrong with that but please don’t pretend like you’re changing the game.

Needn’t have pushed your pitch that strong, Sandu old chap. Surely there were more honourable ways for you to have kept your job than slyly slipping in that “cd like me” bit, so the bosses know who you are.

Crafty traits aside, you mightn’t know that true blue digital campaigns don’t hang their wares on a traditional media tent pole like TV. Digital IS that tent pole. If anything, TV is peripheral. Unlikely Andy knew that, else he wouldn’t have been out of a purist digital gig like Sapient.

Dentsu’s trophies are wrested in Tokyo, not your office. [Edited under Mumbrella’s community standards]

Sorry for the confusion, not Jit. Didn’t mean to post anonymously. Hadn’t had my coffee yet. If you need to hide behind a mask of anonymity, why comment at all 😉 Happy to take your salt in person. It’s not a TV ad, It’s social video. Why on earth would we put it on TV in Singapore? There was talk about maybe putting it in the cinema, but only because we mixed the sound 5.1 😉 Lets see how the campaign does. And Analog Andy. If you think that the me talking about soacial and programatic is “obscure digital” well maybe youre the problem? But OF course it’s “ads”. You got that right! Have a cookie!

1. Ted wants great work.
2. That’s all you want from him.

[Edited under Mumbrella’s community standards]

Hey man, mumbrella has been extremely liberal in allowing fair critique…something rags like that other site routinely suppress. Can we please try not to abuse this privilege lest it is revoked?

I don’t know how you came to the conclusion of who’s posting…it’s specious guesswork at best. Please leave names out of it unless they’re directly connected to this article. Not a fan of the guy you’re targeting myself but let’s not get tacky.

I am actually a woman.

She is.

Nothing specious here. ML is right. J’s the only CD.

I remember I saw Trevor Beattie talk I was a junior – and he said he couldn’t believe people booed at the D&AD. That we should clap when we see good work. I give you fine wine, And in return all I get are sour grapes 😉 it’s a great spot, you know it…

I get defending your work, but “a great spot”? Nah. Replace this brand with any other brand and it has the same impact/result. Very generic.

“His mentor now: Ted Lim”

It is bizarre, to say the least. Greenaway has won far more awards than Lim…altho they both have built their careers on the same kind of
empty pro bono projects. But creatively I give Andy the edge. Why though would anyone hire a subordinate far more senior and awarded than them, knowing full well that it is only matter of time before they make a move. Brave or foolhardy? Time will tell.

“A’s hire A’s, B’s hire C’s”

After seeing this ad, seems more a case of L’s hiring M’s 😉

Great sport, chaps. But I have to say for a bunch of anonymous advertising people, your troll game is proper weak 😉 Away and make some ads. I’m off to reddit…

I am stunned that the Head of Planning allowed this poorly thought out work to leave the agency. As an outsider, even I can tell you that the USP (a rare thing in this category) here is the fact that Singlife is a totally digital platform….so i presume customers can avoid agents who are just chasing their commissions. You get tailored advice, at a far better price. That has got to be the only hook…and I can see that resonating. The task is to steal market share from traditional insurance firms…not grow the market for insurance as this generic crap does.

Poor strategy always fails and this will too….cant see dentsu hanging on for too long. Planners need to (wo)man up….it is clear that they allowed some “award winning” ECD to bulldoze their way through here. [Edited under Mumbrella’s community standards]

Every minute 700 hours of video are uploaded to Youtube. So maybe time to get a grip and understand the significance of what you do in your KPI driven corporate
“creative” jizz-boxes everyday.

That’s not even including FB or Vimeo. And if you’re trying for a P&G The best job in the world is the hardest …. at least star with:

To give life is to understand it … or something that rewards unselfishness and hints at the value of life, one gets when they bring new life into the world.

Doing something unusual in a category and ‘a first’ is good and sell-able in a meeting, but how different is what you are getting wound up about really, in comparison with what everyday people watch and really give a s@#t about.

Andy Greenaway said: “Giving birth is one of the most incredible moments of OUR lives.”
>>> Clearly he never… errm… delivered. How about, “The giving of birth is…” or “Giving birth is…a woman’s life.”

Andy Greenaway said: “It’s arduous, painful, and joyful all at the same time. We wanted to capture that moment on film with REAL Singaporean women.”
>>> So, all this while, ads and films featured unreal women? Did we miss the robots?

[Edited under Mumbrella’s community standards]

Spurred on by Middleton’s missives above, I was curious to see what sort of great social, mobile work would flow off this great “tentpole”….so went online. Just as I thought….b&w stills of the film with vacuous nonsense headlines like HELLO WORLD.

Just goes to show how much BS there is about digital….all they did here was take a traditional ad and put it online….smaller space….lesser copy….but still a disastrous start strategically.

To see how insurance should be done, study Droga’s Prudential campaign in the US….BRING YOUR CHALLENGES….now that’s a strategy you can hang lot of stuff on.

This crap only works for life insurance at best….what about all the rest of the business units? Amateurs from the big picture small logo era.

Clearly the client jerk quoted above doesn’t even know he’s been taken for a ride. Else the work wouldn’t be up there this long. Not a particularly impressive career path either, when you check his social media profile.

“Having a baby is the single most important reason for buying life insurance.” What if we’re dinks, mate? Mind if I bought a policy with the wife in mind? Ours is an ageing population, didn’t you know?

“It’s hard to keep the tears at bay when you watch the film. There has never been a piece like this done for a life insurance company. It’s a special advertisement. It stands for hope and for life”. Your corny cinematic critique makes it hard for my tears to be kept at bay.

P&G’s global CMO needs to rein these drivel spewing oddities with an induction program on digital. Greeny boy, included.

“Not a fan of the guy you’re targeting myself but let’s not get tacky.”

Hear hear.

Much of this thread suggests an axe to grind with an old boss versus any salient/constructive/balanced commentary.

Care to elaborate?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9un-X0Q-ArE

The Tokio Marine ad above is probably the first to feature a live birth. And I much prefer theirs as it has more personality.

…it seems someone got inspired by that ad and is now embarrassingly claiming to be the first just a few months after it’s launch. The pretty obvious difference in quality and thoroughness aside, why would you ever dare to throw a client under the bus like they did here?

Read the client’s appreciation of this trash and you’ll know why he may well deserve to be under that bus. Sigh. Why did Droga ever leave Sg? The whole industry standard has plummetted. Even the BBH that shone during McLelland’s time has hit dirt with that terrible memory work.

C’mon. You think Droga could overcome the market decline in Singapore?
He left for New York because London wasn’t ready for him.
He’s good. But no one man can overcome brain dead clients.

You must be absolutely insane (or Dentsu) to think that you can get away creating a bad copy of a 3 months old ad for a client from the same sector. If there was an award category for stupidity and sheer madness, this was definitely worth a metal.

God you lot are a bunch of sour old bastards in the creative side of the business. You’re the same lot moaning and bitching about digital and programmatic and how it’s all not as good as the old days.

I get people saying it’s cliche, or generic or simply that they don’t like it, but to start shooting down someone’s career and their choices based on an ad, grow up.

If you’re going to get personal then at least use your name you scared little bitches.

How about using your real name for a start yourself? And in case you still haven’t seen the Tokio Marine ad, this one is a bloody copy and whether in the old days or now and whether digital or analog, people do deserve to be punished for copying other people’s work. Full stop.

No point excluding Dentsu, who have a very recent history of copying work and stealing ideas for their own fame, such as revealed in last year’s scandal at the Malaysia Kancils.

It’s a bunch of impertinent and shameless buggers and as long that is the case, people will talk about them. And the fact that the client has probably paid a lot of “origination” money for a copied idea and a public PR embarrassment isn’t making it any better!

“How about using your real name for a start yourself?”

Doesn’t take a lot to guess who “sour old bastards is”….obviously someone from dentsu and connected to this copycat ad. I agree that what started off as just a poor ad with a non existent strategy has now morphed into a crisis that involves charging a client for original concept and serving them an idea done before by a competitor.