New Youi car insurance ads-and owning 'assumption'.

Well, not actually car insurance, but we've launched home insurance now so I've just finished directing some new commercials for it. But the point here is 'research'. The launch of Youi car insurance has been amazing...far exceeding our expectations. But this can throw up its own problems. Which part of the campaign is working, what should we keep, what should we dump...tricky. Last week i was at the model makers (studiokite) who were making a model for our new ads. The guy clearly hadn't been told what who the model was for. So during the conversation he asked what is was for. Somebody replied that it was for a financial services company. Without saying who i said that the model was about making assumptions. To which he replied...'it must be for Youi then...'. I was astounded that he could so quickly leap to that conclusion. He then went on to explain the other chap, verbatim, one of the ads. (and then said how much he liked them! phew...I always hate those moments!) So as an adman, director and marketer i was amazed that we've been able to own such a strong positioning in a new market so quickly. I had a creative director many years ago, who stills remains the most powerful person I've ever worked with, by the name of Ricardo de Carvalho. His mantra was, be 'uncategorylike'. I loved this and hope that our campaign for Youi has achieved this. Our new ads will start soon and I'm looking forward to the reaction to them....

On another sadder note the beaching of over 50 pilot whales on my home beach in Kommetjie in South Africa left me really shocked last week. My friend, Lee Doig, and my sister Sandi Unite live in Kommetjie and spent the day trying to get them back into the sea, but they just kept coming back. They ended up euthenasing over 40 of them...hectic. check it out on youtube  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0b-PAoRhNk