pacific life: refreshing a 150-year-old brand

Challenge: Increase brand awareness and positive recall of an insurance brand that had been heavily outspent in media by its competitors for over 50 years. Previously, Pacific Life's commercials were dull affairs consisting entirely of stock footage of humpback whales and unmemorable voice overs.
Strategy: Create TV spots using the whale icon in conceptually unexpected and memorable ways.
Result: Year after year, Pacific Life enjoyed a 10 to 15% increase in brand awareness and positive brand association.

"Children"  No whales or children were harmed in the making of this spot. The kids were in a pool in Florida. The stock footage of humpbacks was photographed by sea-faring adventurers. We shot a bunch of beautiful blue water in the Bahamas for merging the two sources. The rest was the result of digital FX magic and a nice version of Vivaldi we commissioned from HUM in Santa Monica.

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"Tennis" One of my favorite spots that I've worked on as copywriter. No animals were harmed (including a humpback whale), but some professional tennis players got soaking wet.

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"Animated Paintings" This spot shows Pacific Life's 'mascot' humpback whale in a new light, through the lens of the styles of famous artists. It features animation by Academy Award-winning artist Alexander Petrov. To create the spot's rich effects, Petrov and his team used their fingertips as brushes. In his Moscow studio, the artist—best known for his Oscar-winning animated short, The Old Man and the Sea—painted 625 oil-on-glass pieces over a three-month period.