– But how to fly through 30 years of major milestones and convey an award-winning culture to engage and inspire a diverse audience that includes 11,000 colleagues, 9 million customers and shareholders. The answer lay in animated video…
Admiral wanted a fast-paced, engaging animated brand video to mark its 30th birthday. The brief was to give all its audiences a greater sense of who the Group is, to foster goodwill and inspire people to want to buy its products or shares, or work with or for its companies. The video would be shared across its digital channels and internally and be used, along with associated social media content, throughout the anniversary year.
Admiral Group is a blockbuster of a success story with its heart and soul, as well as its business, in the right place and always striving for better. An international FTSE100 financial services business that launched in Wales with 57 colleagues in 1993, it now has customers in France, Italy, Spain, the UK and the US. Most known for its UK motor insurance business, it also provides home, travel, pet and loans products across its UK and international markets and operates a price comparison site in the US.
Admiral is clear that the core of this success is its people and pride in delivering a good service for customers. The Group started and has continued life firm in the belief that people who love what they do, do it better. It has always been passionate about creating a supportive and inclusive environment for all, basing its culture around four key pillars: communication, reward, fun and equality.
There was a lot to pack in to a 90-second brand video! Admiral’s story is one of continuous growth and customer-centric, innovative firsts – including being the first direct insurer on the internet!
Another challenge was balance: firstly, while its financial success and its professional, corporate reputation are important, the video production had to remain predominantly human, true to its people-centric essence. Secondly, some nostalgic notes would be inevitable and expected of a 30th birthday video production, but it needed to remain relevant and resonant with today’s audiences, too.
Thirdly, the mix of audiences – both internal and external – all needed a positive takeaway from their quite different standpoints. And, finally, the fluidity of its innovative approach to product and commercial development needed to harmonise with the solid constancy of Admiral’s values throughout its 30-year journey so far. This was no ordinary animated explainer video; all while remaining undeniably Admiral and true to its open and transparent style of communication, this video production needed to be a real personality showcase, bursting with positivity that all its viewers couldn’t help but be swept along with.
Addy Frederick
Head of Group Communications, Admiral Group
"It was an absolute pleasure to work with the Magenta team. With the Group turning 30 we wanted a fast-paced video that gave our audience a deep understanding of who we are, celebrated the people who have been with us on our journey and create excitement about our future. It was a big ask but the team completely understood the brief and took it a step-on, providing creative solutions that enabled us to bring our ambitious vision to life."
Our design-led content approach fitted perfectly with this project. The Comms team at Admiral had some fabulous historical photos and footage that we couldn’t wait to get our hands on. Once we did, we recommended mixing a cherry-picked selection of these with new, unique custom-designed imagery, filming our own new footage and taking stills photography, all to be combined to then produce a mixed media animated brand video. Admiral’s teams would feature throughout, reflecting their key tenet of people being responsible for the Group’s success throughout its thirty years.
We presented creative concepts at a workshop with the Admiral Comms team, where we also further drilled down on content together. We then developed narratives and storyboards and presented them back to the team. With the green light given, we liaised with the various teams at Admiral to schedule film and photography shoots where we would also record soundbites to drop into the animation around the voiceover. That way, both sound and vision would centre on colleagues, their words to be overlaid with their photos.
With so many moving parts, efficient scheduling and project management were key among our combined photography, video, design and animation teams. Once we had selected the historical assets supplied by Admiral, captured the additional photography and film and finished creating the designs, our animation team started bringing everything to life. A unique animation style was created for this project, to create a standout identity for the content, that was fresh, fun and uplifting with lots of movement and action, demanding at least a second view.
We produced a 90-second master animated brand video that was launched initially internally then used extensively on Admiral’s channels, plus edits for use as social media content and supporting still images.
