The Big Picture Project

Background

The agency was tasked with bringing to life Aviva’s brand positioning of ‘People not policies’ in a way that also embodied the brand’s determination to act in innovative, unconventional ways. This was made more challenging by the requirement to launch in six cities in different parts of the world, on a budget that didn’t stretch to TV, at a time when the whole financial sector was being treated with suspicion. Clearly, the solution was going to have to go beyond conventional advertising.

Idea

The solution was to create ‘youarethebigpicture.com’, a campaign that seamlessly integrated experiential, digital, viral, outdoor and print.

Aviva tracked down customers who had stories to tell about how they had been helped and reunited them with the staff who dealt with their claims. The resulting portraits, by iconic photographer Patric Shaw, were turned into ‘big pictures’ on skyscrapers, on supersize billboards, in lightbox installations and giant banners, effectively creating the world’s biggest portrait gallery.

On October 4^th 2010, in London, Paris, Warsaw and Singapore giant portraits began appearing on buildings and supersized billboards. A month later they started appearing in Delhi and Mumbai.

Print and online ‘moving portraits’ explained the stories behind the pictures, driving people online.

At the website, the public were encouraged to upload photos of themselves where they could also browse galleries of others who had done the same. The promise was that your photo would be projected as a giant image on a building somewhere.  You were told when and where this would happen so you could alert your friends on Facebook to the moment your image, 10m v 15m, appeared and you, and they, could capture this in a unique video.

In addition, Aviva donated £1 for every upload to ‘Street to School’, a collaboration with Save the Children getting street children into education.

At the website, visitors could see videos of how Aviva’s people had gone beyond the norm to help their customers. Jack Dobson had his beloved old Land Rover stolen. Aviva paid up but when the Land Rover turned up on a website, Aviva recovered it and  returned it to him.

Results

Over 300 giant portraits displayed on over 200 separate sites, including the world’s single biggest photographic portrait.

59,000 self-portraits uploaded and projected.

1.8 million online visits from 187 countries.

0ver 26,000 hours of YouTube live streams viewed.

70 million people estimated to have experienced the campaign (source: Zenith)

Favourable consideration of Aviva amongst target market who were aware of the campaign rose by an average of 12 percentage points (Source: ICM Tracker Nov/Dec 2010)

Our Thoughts

What a terrible name. Aviva. Sounds like a drug for erectile dysfunction. One of those

names created by a brand consultancy to try and sellotape together the merger of a

whole bunch of companies into one big corporation with global ambitions. So the

agency’s task was, as much as anything, bring meaning to a company with a

meaningless name and create, out of thin air, a brand.

I think they’ve done it rather well, putting a human face on an organisation that was

almost completely featureless.

They obviously weren’t sure that the lure of having yourself screened onto the National

Theatre in London or Statesman House in Delhi, etc, would be enough so there was

the small bribe as well. For every upload, a £1 donation to charity.

I’d love to know more about the internal marketing of this campaign because its

success or failure will be in how Aviva’s people now deal with claimants. If, as

individuals, they are caring and courteous, able to deliver the brand promise, this could

be an idea worth many, many millions.