Liberty Mutual Names GS&P Creative Agency of Record for U.S. Consumer Markets

Liberty Mutual has appointed Goodby, Silverstein & Partners as creative agency of record for its consumer business unit after a review. "We are very excited to work with the talented team at Goodby Silverstein & Partners," said Liberty Mutual CMO, U.S. consumer markets, Emily Fink. "They bring proven experience in growing national brands, accomplished creative leadership, as well as strong strategic thinking and analytic capabilities to the table—all of which will drive our brand and business to the next level." She added that the agency has "been extremely collaborative partners throughout the process, and we look forward to our continued partnership." "Insurance is the new beer—it’s a category full of great creative work and big budgets," said GS&P managing partner Brian McPherson. "We’re really excited to enter the fray on behalf of Liberty Mutual. They are smart, driven and really collaborative as client partners, and we believe we’ll do some famous work they will benefit from." The selection concludes a review launched in June, which specified that Liberty Mutual was seeking to expand its marketing efforts domestically with "new concepts" and included Havas New York, incumbent on the account since 2013. Havas most notably created a series of ads for the brand featuring customers standing in front of the Statue of Liberty. The company's contract with Havas will officially end on Jan. 1, 2018. "We are extremely proud of the work we’ve created with Havas as a partner and how the campaign helped push our brand," a Liberty Mutual spokesperson said in a statement. "We have nothing but absolute respect for the entire Havas organization and gratitude for their first-rate partnership." "Liberty Mutual is a fantastic company, and has been an amazing client and partner for the last three years. In that time, Liberty has grown from the No. 6 Home and Auto Insurance Provider to No. 3. Importantly, our data and CRM group, Havas Helia, maintains their over decade long relationship," said a Havas representative. "Together we have built one of the most iconic advertising campaigns the insurance category has seen—'Truth Tellers.' We are very proud to have been a part of growing the brand's unaided awareness by nearly 60 percent in three years and quadrupling the company’s year-over-year new business growth rate over that time," the spokesperson added. "Thus, we are disappointed in Liberty’s decision to part ways but wish the them nothing but the best and look forward to potential opportunities down the road." Liberty Mutual spent nearly $402 million on measured marketing domestically last year across all of its units and around $155 million in the first six months of 2017, according to Kantar Media. It's unclear how much of this spending was related to the B2C business, as media totals for that division are not available at this time. But sources with direct knowledge of the review estimate the business could bring in between $8 and $12 million in yearly revenue for GS&P. This news comes after the agency won lead creative duties on the Pepsi brand in a closed Ominicom review and picked up work promoting NFL Thursday Night Football and student loan startup Gradifi. GS&P also recently won new assignments for Lay's SunChips and expanded its responsibilities on the Comcast account. Patrick Coffee contributed reporting to this story.