Small business owners have enough to deal with these days, so the latest campaign from TruShield Insurance aims to show them that having their companies covered doesn’t have to bring the added stress they are expecting.

The approach for the new campaign was informed by Leger research showing that only 57% of small- and medium-sized businesses surveyed said they had commercial general liability insurance and only 8% had cyber risk insurance, even in spite of the global pandemic and the new risks presented by lockdowns and other measures.

“Businesses typically don’t have the insurance that they need – especially now, when the entire ecosystem for a lot of businesses has been completely upended,” explains Ron Tite, founder and CCO of agency Church + State, which created the new campaign. “But the one thing people need to do in chaotic times is to take a step back and make sure they have the coverage that they need.”

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That’s the narrative focus of the new campaign, which began this month with online video and display. It shows business owners recoiling in horror at the very mention of business insurance, reactions TruShield aims to soothe among its core audience by letting them know the direct-to-consumer digital broker will handle it for them.

The message is part of two-pronged approach that is meant to be relevant to whatever a small business might be going through right now, and convince them these kinds of insurance plans are not the kind of thing that can be put off.

“We’re seeing that Canadian small businesses are either busier than ever or they’re struggling to survive,” says Craig Hopkinson, VP at TruShield. “We need to help those who are busy with fast and efficient insurance, but we also wanted to help those businesses who need it with meaningful support at this critical time.”

The tongue-in-cheek approach to the topic was a deliberate stylistic choice, Tite says, because as the research has shown – and both Church + State and TruShield already believed anecdotally – figuring out insurance “is not the reason people start a business.”

“We find that when brands can be really honest – regardless of the category – about the role they actually play in somebody’s life, it makes them way more relevant, as opposed to when the brand assumes their product is way more present in the lives of their customers than it actually is,” he says.