Liberty Mutual’s ‘In Action’

Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners’ first branding campaign for Liberty Mutual features employees of the Boston insurance company and carries the new theme, “Insurance in action.”
The $30 million effort, which includes TV, print, radio and outdoor executions, positions Liberty’s workers as “insurance activists,” said Bill Oberlander, executive creative director at the New York agency.
Three TV commercials–breaking next Monday on network news programs such as Dateline, 60 Minutes and 20/20–feature a fire safety expert (“Fire is my life”), a man who trains claims adjusters by building and destroying homes (“I’m a professional vandal”) and a specialist obsessed with the slipperiness of grapes on supermarket floors.
The goal of the campaign is to show “proactive people in a static industry,” said Oberlander.
A print spread with the headline, “Fall asleep in my class and you’re dead,” is running in the March issue of magazines such as Martha Stewart Living. It features Julie Boucher, a Liberty sales representative who visits high schools to share tips on safe driving (“seat belts, alcohol, responsibility . . . whatever I’ve learned throughout the years”).
Kirshenbaum, which landed the account last April, first stressed a “Control your destiny” theme but revised it. The client spent $26 million on ads through November 1998, per Competitive Media Reporting.
Previous Liberty ads from the defunct Wells BDDP showed workers helping people live safer lives.