Meet the Creative Turning a Swedish Start-Up Into the Supreme of Insurance

Just two days after launch, the exclusive line of vintage furniture, art and home goods has sold out. Now, when the brand posts images on social media of its latest products—from hoodies to caps, umbrellas and tote bags—its DMs blow up with requests from fans.

You’d be forgiven for wondering which fashion or retail brand has created such a buzz, but the creator of these coveted items is more unexpected: it’s an insurance company.

Since its launch in 2017, Swedish start-up Hedvig has built a cult following and become one of the fastest growing insurance companies in the Nordics. It’s unusual for a brand in a sector as staid as insurance to become so trendy that people will line up for its merch. But Hedvig has achieved that with marketing that resonates with a younger generation. Its in-house executive creative director, Evelina Rönnung, is helping Hedvig disrupt the industry through a unique creative approach that has transformed the business from obscure start-up to challenger brand.

“I told myself, ‘we’re an insurance company, no one wants to wear our merch.’ Now people are screaming for it,” Rönnung said. “The fact that people are standing in line to get our hoodies—what is that? I can’t measure it, but I can also say this will be worth millions of dollars someday.”

Creative roots

Rönnung once described herself in a bio as “obsessed with challenging the boring and the ordinary,” an ethos she traces back to an early sense of isolation. She grew up in Swedish ski resort village Lofsdalen, home to 159 inhabitants, and went to a school with only three other students.

“Naturally I didn’t have that many friends,” she told Adweek. “I think that isolation sparked my creativity.” 

A lover of art and design, she decided to study visual communications and enrolled at Berghs School of Communication in Stockholm—one of the world’s top advertising colleges.

Rönnung found success early on, landing her first job at Åkestam Holst, one of Sweden’s biggest ad agencies. She went on to become an art director at Forsman & Bodenfors, another top Swedish agency, and to win accolades from the likes of The One Show, D&AD and Art Directors Club. Her unexpected work was typified by an Ikea print campaign featuring a strip with the technology used in pregnancy tests—if the user was pregnant, the price for the crib in the ad would drop.

In 2019, Rönnung founded her own agency called JR with fellow Swedish creative Magnus Jakobsson. But it didn’t last long: JR shut its doors after only six months.

“I wanted to create something by myself, and I didn’t want to be limited by a client saying yes or no to my ideas. I wanted to be the client myself,” she said.

Hedvig, which had been one of JR’s clients, brought Rönnung in as a freelance consultant after the agency closed. When the company offered her a full-time job as its creative leader, one major factor persuaded her to take the leap from agency land to start-up.

“I had been measured by ad awards, and my brand as a creative was stuck. I felt empty. I wanted to get away from this hamster wheel of trying to win awards,” she said. “[Hedvig] works with a real goal, trying every day to get people to change their insurance company. It’s the hardest task I’ve ever had.”

Challenging the sector

After Rönnung joined Hedvig in December 2019, the company underwent a total rebranding in 2020. “They had this generic start-up brand,” she recalled, “but no one knew about them.”

To help Hedvig stand out, Rönnung’s team decided to challenge the foundational principles on which the sector typically communicates.

“Most insurance companies encourage people to [minimize risk in] their lives. To us, that didn’t make sense. If we’re an insurance company, we should encourage people to take risks because they have a service to help them,” she said. “We don’t need to use fear mongering. We can say, ‘go screw up, because you have an insurance company.’”

The brand’s first campaign introducing this message was “It’s Just Stuff” in 2020. The humorous ads told customers that with Hedvig insurance, they could be relaxed about losing belongings such as bikes or luggage. One spot showed a man riding a bike, with the wry line: “It can be hard to let go of the things you love. But your stolen bike seems to be in good hands.”

Last year, Hedvig followed that by targeting college students with billboards that simply read, “Go get in trouble”—a call to embrace exploration, fun and new experiences.

“Why would we put the burden on them to be careful?” Rönnung observed. “It’s like saying, ‘don’t live.’”

Marketing for a young generation

Hedvig has been able to stand apart in its sector by speaking directly to an audience aged 35 and below, a group usually overlooked by insurance companies “because they’re the ones who typically take the most risk and are the least profitable cohort,” Rönnung explained.

The brand’s marketing has reflected this younger generation’s differing values, such as a backlash against materialism. “We’re talking to this new generation who prefers experiences. They’re not into stuff as much,” she continued. “They’re fluid, global citizens with high demands and they want things personalized.”

Beyond its advertising, however, Hedvig is also creating new insurance services that are more relevant to this generation and subvert traditional ideas of what should be valued. For example, in January it changed its policy so that makeup and beauty products are now covered by its home insurance. The accompanying campaign featured up-and-coming creative talent such as Danish model Vincent Beier, Swedish entrepreneur Julia Dang and Norwegian influencer Pauline Krokeide.

So far, this approach seems to be paying off for Hedvig’s business. Since its rebranding in 2020, it has found that three times as many people are looking for Hedvig when searching for insurance options online, while young people have gone from being willing to pay 10% less to 20% more for its insurance, according to the brand’s own metrics.

Hedvig’s long-term goal is to continue challenging the way insurance companies work, such as by offering more flexible services for one-off events or protecting a wider range of possessions, even virtual ones like NFTs. “Insurance today is so static,” Rönnung said.

It also aims to build its business globally. “Insurance has always been a very local thing. There’s no Uber for insurance—a global company that can insure you no matter where you live,” she said. “We want to solve that problem.”

Embracing creativity

Hedvig’s creative strategy could hold insights for other businesses that typically struggle to cut through and resonate in culture, Rönnung said.

Most crucial is its focus on building a brand long-term rather than achieving short-term results.

Many start-ups especially “fall into this short-termism trap,” Rönnung explained. “From the beginning we dared to invest a lot of money into building our brand. You don’t see the direct results of brand investment like an outdoor campaign, but we have the patience and long-term approach that is key. We can’t trade the magic for the measurable.”

At Hedvig, the management team has also given a lot of freedom and trust to its creative department, Rönnung observed.

“Some businesses want the results of creativity but don’t want the creative process, because it’s the opposite of organization. It’s ugly and sometimes hellish,” she said. “You need leaders who can facilitate and tolerate those kinds of processes.”

Her final piece of advice to other creatives? “Try and find a place where someone puts a lot of faith in you and gives you the freedom to actually create. Don’t be fooled by ‘cool’ companies with cultural gimmicks. Creativity is something that you have inside of you and that a great leader can help foster.”

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