The campaign, featuring a cast of A-list celebrities, aims to promote Norwich Union's name-change to Aviva. It has incurred the wrath of shareholders who, at last week's annual general meeting, accused the company management of squandering money. It has also been widely criticised for being both confused and confusing.
When the subject of the rebrand comes up, the 51-year-old Shire's normally self-effacing manner changes, and she becomes steely in defence of the work. She makes no apology for adopting a strategy that is, in her own words, ‘big, bold and proud'.
It was certainly pricey; figures of up to £80m have been mentioned in the press. Shire enlisted the support of Ringo Starr, Bruce Willis and Elle Macpherson to help generate a global sense of importance. However, the approach has also been dismissed as gratuitous and inappropriate during a time of recession.
In making the case for the project, Shire refers to a customer consultation group she set up to canvass external views on the activity. ‘If we had shown the work to our customers and they had said "No", we would have absolutely thought twice,' she insists. ‘We were showing the work as late
as November.'
Shire maintains that the blanket nature of the campaign was necessary to gain the attention of an indifferent audience. She also points out that falling media prices enabled Aviva to achieve a ‘bigger bang for [its] buck'. This also meant the campaign could be sustained for longer than the marketing team had expected.
‘The starting point was to make sure our customers knew what we were doing, and could find out what they needed to hear about the name-change to feel comfort-able,' says Shire. ‘The harsh reality is that financial-services companies are not the most important thing in people's lives, so it was important we created this in a way that would engage and generate awareness.'
Aviva has responded to its critics by pointing out that awareness of the new brand rose sharply following the campaign launch - from 35% to nearly 80% in just three weeks. Chief executive Andrew Moss, who made the decision to roll out the Aviva brand across all international markets, has also been keen to remind detractors that the latest annual Brand Finance report ranks Aviva as the fourth most-valuable insurance brand in the world.
However, Shire admits that, for all the attention given to its rebrand advertising, the challenge of constructing a deeper Aviva brand is at a very early stage. A follow-up campaign, launched in March, featured Aviva's first global TV ad; it seeks to position the insurer as a business that treats all its customers as individuals.
‘The advertising is the summation of our customer research, and when we started out on the whole brand positioning, the compelling thing that came back was a desire for individuality from customers,' she says. ‘All of our work around the brand is how we deliver that for customers.'
In the ad, the celebrities who starred in the first campaign are joined by fictional customers. All complain that they do not wish to be treated ‘like a customer reference number'. Confusingly, Ringo Starr also asks not to be called by his stage name, despite advocating name-change in the first ad.
Whether a simple promise to treat customers well is a sufficiently significant proposition upon which to build an entire brand is debatable. However, Shire is again steadfast in defending the strategy. ‘All brand communications only differentiate depending on whether you can deliver on your message,' she says. ‘We have to deliver internally to deliver externally.'
Shire cites examples of how the group is attempting to provide a more tailored service, such as through health insurance policies that offer customers with certain illnesses a one-to-one relationship with a dedicated call-handler. ‘The last thing you need during treatment is to explain your situation over and over, so it is about trying to recognise what customers need at any given time,' she adds.
The Aviva name-change, which comes into effect on 1 June, will be accompanied by further above-the-line marketing. Shire is reluctant to disclose which, if any, of the celebrities will continue to appear in these TV ads. She does reveal, however, that the second ad provides something of a blueprint for subsequent campaigns.
It is less clear how the Aviva branding will influence the more direct-sale insurance ads. All marketing for the company's life and general insurance products has been done under the Norwich Union brand, and this will continue until next month. In January, the Norwich Union marketing team even reintroduced the Happy brand character to its ads.
Shire argues that it was right to keep the Norwich Union brand active for as long as possible. ‘We are in transition, talking about the future, but we need to keep the business going, and that business is still Norwich Union. It would be more confusing trying to reposition Norwich Union before you get to Aviva,' she says.
‘Everything we do in the direct space must have cut-through, but, having said that, it needs to be in keeping with the brand,' she adds. ‘When you are promoting motor insurance, for example, you need something very quick, transactional and snappy. When you are selling a pension it is completely different. For us it provides
an opportunity to do something a bit different in that space.'
With many of Aviva's global and local advertising strategies up in the air, now would seem an opportune moment to look at agency arrangements. However, Shire claims she is content with the work of lead agency Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO. She also says Aviva has no plans to look at local agency rosters, nor will it attempt to save costs by appointing a single media buying and planning partner.
Instead, according to Shire, Aviva will focus on current agency relationships, and manoeuvre the brand into a position to capitalise on rising consumer confidence, once the recessionary gloom lifts.
Even so, awareness of a brand is quite separate from warmth and trust, and Shire must be hoping that UK consumers will respond to the ‘modern' and ‘global' brand proposition. Otherwise, further alarm bells will start ringing over whether the rebrand was money well spent.