Aviva is launching a high profile ‘emotionally disturbing' life insurance campaign including a series of television adverts.
The 40 second spot that stars Paul Whitehouse will be joined by adverts in many national newspapers.
The provider said the campaign is aimed at highlighting the importance of taking out life insurance and addressing the barriers commonly cited by consumers as reasons for not buying the cover.
Louise Colley, head of protection marketing at Aviva, told COVER that consumer research conducted by the provider indicated current industry messages were not emotionally hard hitting enough.
"We consulted consumers across the UK and created six concepts that would make them respond to life insurance," she said.
"We tested the concepts with intermediaries and the underlying theme throughout was emotionally disturb me, which we were surprised about.
"Looking deeper at the emotional connection, consumers said the typical barriers against buying protection insurance came in to play because they just don't think it will happen, but the resounding response was ‘make me feel emotional and we are likely to do something,'" she added.
Roy McLoughlin, senior partner at Master Adviser, has seen an advance preview of the advert and gave it his seal of approval.
"It's got the subtle blend of shock tactics but is not a grim reaper advert and I really like it," he said.
"It's really powerful and most importantly points to where to find financial advice. It has to be shock tactics because its talking about life insurance and death, but it gets the subtle point across in the right balance.
"I would urge other insurers to use television as the most powerful medium because it gets out to the general public," he added.
The project is part of the provider's ongoing aim to target families to increase their protection cover.
Colley discussed the results of in depth research carried out by Aviva at the COVER Forum last year, and said the findings played a key part in forming this campaign.
