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Tony Hallett's After These Messages: esure's winner versus IBM's sleekness
Which ads are the more effective?

By Tony Hallett

Published: Wednesday 05 March 2003

Tony Hallett continues his series on marketing myths and advertising lies by considering a couple of well-known TV commercials from opposite ends of the taste spectrum...

IBM's ads across various media, but especially television, have in recent years been polished affairs. Think (as they might have once told us). You know them. Whether we're talking old Italian lady selling olive oil online, CIO confronted with not-my-problem colleagues in the boardroom or the more recent offerings in its Fantasy versus Reality campaign (remember the Universal Business Adapter?), it has presented itself as a confident leader in computing.

Now consider the average ad for retailers and other high street names with an online presence in the UK. We know not all have the budgets of an IBM or even comparable marketing savvy but some are plain woeful. Specifically cast your mind to the current ad for online insurer esure - the one featuring film director Michael Winner.

This ad is terrible on so many levels. The script, acting and direction are all awful. I haven't met anyone who hasn't despised the man's head-snapping prang with another car or the woman who finishes the ad with an "Hello mum!" direct to camera. How old must her mum be?

esure is a division of Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS), a retail bank and mortgage provider that has just turned in results featuring a healthy £3bn in annual profits - dig those UK retail banking margins. Shouldn't they know better? It's not as if other marketing activity within that group has made the world a better place ...but Winner and co? Really!

Forget, for a moment, that Michael Winner almost certainly wouldn't be allowed to get insurance via esure, what with him being a film director, entertainer and all round bon viveur. The rumour has it he wrote and directed the commercial. HBOS had some idea what it was getting in to.

And here's the nub of it. As with Ferrero Rocher and the ambassador's exquisite taste, might it be that brand recognition through irritating viewers is better for this HBOS arm than non-offensive yet forgetful advertising? IBM has taken years to build its reinvented brand in the mainstream, along the way coining phrases such as 'ebusiness' (yes, we're well aware silicon.com wasn't the first) in careful, expensive campaigns.

An esure, elephant.co.uk or morethan.com, all peddling car and other insurance in the UK, doesn't have that luxury. They must rely on gimmicks and, whether we like it or not, 'so bad it's good' often does the trick.