Time for Fun - How boundless imagination = transformative creativity

IPA Effectiveness Awards Case Study 2024

Membership of not-for-profit Boundless (once the Civil Service Motoring Association), which provides benefits and insurance discounts to public sector workers, hit a new low in 2020. A three-year transformation aimed to increase total membership revenue, retain more first-year members, and raise prices. The role for communications was to get public sector workers to reconsider and search for Boundless and reduce price elasticity. Creative messaging celebrated the audience’s desire to enjoy surreal adventures and was distributed using high reach channels, segmentation, and digital targeting. The campaign outperformed its goals and returned an estimated £1.45 of revenue per £1 invested.

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Client Statement

Darren Milton, CMO, Boundless

The brand transformation project was a pivotal moment in the company’s one hundred year history. Here are a few things we learnt along the way.

Confront your uncomfortable truths head on: you have to be honest about the issues you face and this can sometimes be uncomfortable. It’s essential that you’re clear on the problem you’re trying to solve. For us the proposition wasn’t compelling enough and we weren’t marketing effectively, so getting everyone, including the board, to accept that was a critical step.

Create the right environment for change: in order to face these uncomfortable truths, you need to create a culture when honesty, experimentation and boldness can thrive and this needs to be done respectfully, so that everyone is heard, not just the loudest voices, and in an environment where failure isn’t penalised and blame isn’t handed out.

Oil the wheels of change well in advance: take people on the journey, particularly board members, to explain the issues and how you plan to address them and why that solution is better than an alternative. And do this one-to-one if you can and more than once. Pulling back the curtains for a grand reveal the day before launch is a high risk game that rarely ends well.

The riskiest thing you can do is play it safe: looking at what your competitors are doing and copying their advertising approach is tempting, but risky. Be distinctive in your own way. Go against the grain. Be surprising. If you’re not nervous about your creative, you’re probably not pushing it far enough. I knew we were doing something completely new in the category – I was nervous about showing it to the board, but not about releasing it into the wild. Indifference is the enemy of great.