A burning house. A wrecked car. A sick spouse. The traditional approach to selling personal insurance has been to scare the heck out of the consumer with terrifying ‘what if’ scenarios.

Now contrast that with the first national branding campaign for RBC Insurance, in which kids are shown racing down water slides and young couples are pictured embracing.

In a series of three, 30-second English television spots and two French-language TV spots, the insurance arm of the Royal Bank has taken a distinctly upbeat, optimistic approach to selling insurance.

‘People don’t buy insurance out of fear; they buy insurance so they can go out and enjoy life and not have to fear if something bad happens,’ says Bill MacDonald, president of Brandworks International, the Toronto-based agency that created the campaign.

The spots, which promote the bank’s home, auto and travel insurance, favour slow-motion pictures of families enjoying life instead of sobering images of the after-effects of a brutal car wreck or the charred frame of the family home.

‘The key to our positioning is to avoid the doom and gloom,’ says Tanis Dal Zotto, RBC Insurance vice-president of marketing. ‘We wanted to make a positive emotional connection with consumers and use optimism as a point of differentiation with the competition.’

Finding that point of differentiation was an important objective given that the campaign was RBC’s first consumer-targeted branding effort, Dal Zotto says. The company has only been offering home and automobile insurance nationally since December. In the past, the life, home, auto and travel insurance policies were sold under three different brands – RBC Direct, Westbury and Voyageur – and marketed mainly through direct response and radio advertising. Those brands are now being phased out in favour of the RBC Insurance umbrella.

‘We have pretty much a clean slate as far as this brand is concerned,’ says Dal Zotto.

Credits:

Client: RBC Insurance

Agency: Brandworks International

Account Director: Bill MacDonald

Creative Director: Michael Clancy

Writer: Michael Clancy

Art Director: Joe Durning

Executive Producer: Ron Chapman

Media: Television

Start Date: February 2000

End Date: November 2000

Strategy is on the ground in Cannes, bringing you the latest news, wins and conference highlights all week long. Catch all the coverage here.

Friday’s batch of Silver and Bronze winners included the oldest category at the Cannes festival, Film, as well as Sustainable Development Goals, Dan Wieden Titanium, Glass: The Lion for Change and Grand Prix for Good. Canadians were recognized with four Lions today: two Silver and a Bronze in Film, as well as a Bronze in Sustainable Development Goals.

FCB Toronto was given yet another nod for its work, “The Count,” for SickKids, bringing the medal count for that campaign to four, including a Gold for Health & Wellness. Another Canadian agency recognized on the final day of the festival was Klick Health Toronto, which earned a Silver in Film for its work “Love Captured” for Human Trafficking Awareness and a Bronze for “18 Months” for Second Nurture. And over in Sustainable Development Goals, the Bronze went to Publicis Canada and its “Wildfire Watchtowers” work for Rogers.

Another massive win for Canada included not one, but two Young Lions (pictured above) taking home medals in the annual competition. In Design, the Gold Young Lion was awarded to Rethink’s senior motion designer Jesse Shaw and ACD Zoë Boudreau. The second, a Bronze in Media, went to Cossette Media’s business intelligence analyst Samuel David-Durocher and product development supervisor Tristan Bonnot-Parent.

Film (2 Silver, 1 Bronze)

1 SILVER: “The  Count” by FCB Toronto for SickKids Foundation

“The Count,” a striking campaign from FCB Toronto for SickKids Foundation, has earned 1 Gold, 2 Bronze and now 1 Silver for Film at Cannes. If you watch it, it’s easy to see why. The collaboration between brand and agency honoured the hospital’s “VS” platform, while steering it in a new direction from its initial development by previous AOR Cossette. The creative celebrates childhood cancer patients who have to fight for every birthday, while honouring the hospital’s own milestone – 150 years and counting.

1 Silver: “Love Captured” by Klick Health Toronto for The Exodus Road

Klick Health Toronto added to its medal tally with a Silver in Film for it’s work “Love Captured” for The Exodus Road. The creative features a romantic getaway that isn’t what it seems in an experiential short film for the global anti-trafficking organization. The experience takes viewers through a tragic and twisting experience of exploitation.

1 BRONZE: “18 Months” by Klick Health Toronto for Second Nurture

Klick Health Toronto also won a Bronze in the Film category for its work, “18 Months,” done for the charity organization Second Nurture. The animated film is based on a real-life story in which a same-sex couple adopts a baby found in a subway station, and the 18-month journey into a story of hope.

Sustainable Development Goals (1 Bronze)

1 BRONZE: “Wildfire Watchtowers” by Publicis Canada for Rogers

Publicis Canada landed on the winners board for its work, “Wildfire Watchtowers,” for Rogers. The Canadian-developed wildfire-detection tech – which has been billed as “a fire alarm in the forest” – uses AI-powered sensors installed on 5G towers to monitor vast remote areas in real time. By scanning, identifying and reporting early signs of wildfires (up to 16 minutes faster than other systems), the technology helped prevent 54 fires in 2024 alone.

Catch the Gold winners later today when they’re revealed at the gala in Cannes.