Arnold Schwarzenegger’s decapitated head will not be back after its final outing for the Financial Conduct Authority, encouraging stragglers to claim for missold payment protection insurance in the final two months before the deadline.
The first of a series of five ads created by M&C Saatchi breaks today and features the animatronic head of the actor and politician suck in a hydraulic press.
As the 29 August deadline draws near, a succession of ads will unveil what happens to the head, culminating in what the FCA described as a "finale-style" execution for the final instalment.
At M&C Saatchi, the creative directors were Dom Moira and Kieron Roe and the creatives were Thom Farrall and Liam Campbell. Ninian Doff directed the ads through Pulse Films. Post-Production was by ETC and the voiceover studio was 750 MPH.
Justin Tindall, group chief creative officer at M&C Saatchi, said: "Our ambition with this campaign when it started was to cut through all the white noise of PPI to make people stop and take action. Featuring an animatronic Arnie head yelling about PPI was a stroke of crazy creative genius and about as far removed from box-ticking advertising as you can get.
"Sadly, Arnie won’t be back after the PPI complaints deadline passes in August, but we certainly hope this type of stand-out creativity in advertising – that delivers tangible results – will be more prevalent. We’ve loved every minute of it."
Radio, digital, out-of-home and social ads will accompany the TV spots. Manning Gottlieb OMD did the media planning.
The FCA first introduced the Arnie head campaign in August 2017 as part of its efforts to get people to claim compensation if they believed they had been mistakenly been sold PPI. In total, £35.6bn has been paid out since January 2011. People who claim after 29 August 2019 will not be entitled to anything.
Emma Stranack, head of business and consumer communications at the FCA, said: "Our campaign was designed primarily for awareness raising, but also has a job to do in actively nudging a huge and varied audience along their decision-making journey.
"The scale of this campaign is a first for the FCA and wouldn’t have been possible without the creativity and dedication of a fantastic team of marketers – both agency and client-side – with complementary skills."
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