Norwich Union Direct car Insurance (TV advert) > Reviews (1)

My first review in a long while.. bear with me.. (see me as Xopher in a previous life)

Norwich UnionCar Insurance Advert

I am making the assumption here that we are talking about the latest run of adverts starring Craig Cash, and not the previous “quote me happy” run of continual irritation.

Now, I’m not going to explain to you all what Insurance is to fill up room and make you read lots of interesting underwriting stuff and the like, but I feel it may be of help to give a really basic potted history of what Norwich Union actually is.

Norwich Union is one of several insurance companies owned by the Aviva group.
The Aviva group owns 40 different brand names, including the former Cheltenham and Gloucester (who were the CG in the previous GGNU incarnation).
Aviva trades in over 20 countries and is now the largest insurer in the UK and the 4th largest worldwide.
Aviva kept the name of Norwich Union (NU) intact in the UK, and currently use the blue yellow and green (church steeple) logo formerly associated with Norwich Union Direct (NUD) products.
NUD (and Aviva) also have lucrative contracts with companies such as Asda, Ford, and Barclays whose branded insurance is handled by NU.
It’s not only insurance, NUD also sells electrical goods, cars, car breakdown cover, and is soon to take ownership of HPI, the car registration history check company.
Aviva soon plans to take over the world, using a huge laser beam reflected off the moon by a huge mirror but I don’t think I’m allowed to discuss that right now.

The Advert.

NU has always had an image of being a responsible, caring company due to its previous advertising.
A typical NU advert has no dancing phones, no memorable sing-along phone numbers, very little action, and is designed to instil a feeling of peace to the viewer.
I once heard it said that if NU were a real family, it would shop at Tescos.
That’s exactly the type of image NUD are trying to reflect in their company and the advertising targets exactly that kind of person, you know, the sensible, caring, real people in the world.
Until “quote me happy” NUD never really did have a strong advertising catchphrase (tagline), unless you remember “Together we’re Stronger” of course.
Those of you who do shop at Tescos will probably yell loads more at me now….

The most recent run of adverts centralise on the caring aspect of the company.
We see Craig Cash (Dave from the Royle Family) sitting in his car, talking to camera about how he bumped into his old friend in town.
There are no images of car crashes, sounds of crunching and horns accompanying this dialogue, just Cash, talking to camera…
“Bumped into an old friend”, he says “didn’t cause too much damage….”
He then goes on to list some minor damage such as scrapes and dents.
The delivery of the dialogue is slow, soft in volume, and precise which makes the subject matter seem less imposing, especially coming from the monologue delivery style of Cash.
Cash then goes on to talk about how well the incident was handled by NUD and the total feeling of calm he felt throughout.

The advert itself is in no way memorable, but it does have gentle humour throughout that people associate with Cash, therefore making the unwitting sub-conscious decision that Craig Cash really is NUD!
Nice, quite sensible, normal, probably shops at Tescos.

For a 30 second spot, placed in between the right television advert breaks this is not advertising at its best, but it is certainly powerful enough to place NUD into an image that people can remember, and remember with a feeling of gentle serenity.
The best place to find an NUD advert (this one in particular) is the second break of a television program such as ‘faking it’ on C4, or pretty much any type of home buying show (NU have a big interest there too believe it or not!) .

I’d just like to mention that other quality supermarkets are available.

Thanks for reading and let me know what I could add/remove, would love to hear your comments.

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