How Nordic brand Pohjola became the one positive voice in the insurance category

The insurance category is very conventional. Most of the brands within this sector tend to focus on the same issues: risks and preparedness. The industry itself is associated with negativity - you only really think about it if something goes wrong, which has led to it becoming an incredibly low interest category, especially among young people.

To negate all this negativity and engage a new audience, Nordic insurance brand Pohjola wanted to find a way to encourage people to live life without fear or regret and talk about taking risks, instead of avoiding them. All the competition was talking about was how to prepare for the worst case scenario. In doing something different, Pohjola created a campaign that became the one positive voice in the category.

The idea was that life is priceless, and you only get one. Everything else material wise, can be replaced.

The campaign started with a manifesto film, which was then followed by social content telling telling the story of two friends (Mark & Jonathan) who get reborn, but never as humans. As they talk, they realise how much they had left undone in their human days.

Throughout the campaign Pohjola also worked closely with 30 influencers - from celebrities to micro-influencers, to create authentic content around the idea of living life to the fullest. The response to the idea was different for each influencer - for some it was travelling to a destination that they always wanted to visit, for others it was learning new skills.

One particularly moving story came from a former Miss Finland, a cancer survivor, who decided to make jewellery with her kids in order to raise money for children with cancer.

The social films ran on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram and people started using the campaign hashtag #eläse (live it) immediately to share their own bucket lists online.

The campaign has already reached over 3 million people - in a country of 5.5 million - which for a Nordic insurance brand, is monumental. Not only that - online sales have spiked 20%, traffic to the site went up 18% and brand awareness increased from 39% to 66%, taking the relatively unknown brand, up to no.2 in the local market.