NobleOak Life Insurance, with the help of challenger brand agency Mr Wolf, has launched a new campaign adding a touch of nobility and humour to the often straight-laced life cover category.

Challenger Brand agency Mr Wolf has launched its first campaign for NobleOak, bringing nobility back to life insurance and adding a touch of humour to an industry more used to being straight-laced and opaque.

NobleOak’s approach was simple: offer comprehensive life cover without the trade-off that usually comes with it — either you get good value, or you get good cover, rarely both. Mr Wolf’s job was to give that positioning a genuinely memorable, ownable expression.

Michael Stevenson, Managing Partner at Mr Wolf, explained the thinking behind the idea: “The creative concept was born from the realisation that taking out life insurance is a particularly noble gesture. Insuring your life, when you won’t personally benefit from the payout, is a beautiful, selfless act that should be supported, not exploited.”

That insight led to the campaign’s central device: a hyperbolic figurehead for the brand — Baron Roderick III, a modern-day nobleman embodying the values NobleOak stands for, alongside his long-suffering manservant, Bletchley — running across TV, digital, social and OOH in a multi-million dollar campaign built to grow throughout the year.

Tony Singleton, Managing Partner at Mr Wolf, said the category needed both cut-through and trust in equal measure: “Life insurance doesn’t naturally inspire people to jump out of bed – and that’s before you throw in trust eroding Royal Commission and a brand people haven’t grown up with. By harnessing a firmly tongue-in-cheek embodiment of the NobleOak nobleman we can establish brand linkage and memorability, while attaching a set of noble values to the brand reflective of a largely lost, more trustworthy world.”

David Hirsch, CMO of NobleOak, added: “In an industry that is often accused of being either dry or slapstick, we have used humour with relatable characters and relationships to share an important and noble message in a unique way.”

The campaign launched on 8 September with Pay and FTA TV in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, followed by a full suite of assets from late September onwards.

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