Buying their first home. Saving for that dream vacation. Changing careers. People come to Pinterest when they’re planning for key life milestones. As it happens, these are also all important moments for buying home, auto and life insurance.
And that’s where State Farm saw their opportunity. They teamed up with creative lead agency, The Marketing Arm (TMA), to develop a campaign that focused on life milestones. They set high expectations for their strategy and creative approach, hoping to break the mold and do something unexpected for an insurance brand.
Outside the industry box
Traditional insurance campaigns tend to focus on the product itself. To stand out, the State Farm team anchored their creative in helpful tips and insights instead. Their creative focused on the key life moments when people seek life, auto and home insurance.
The team pushed creative boundaries with Pinterest video ads, using innovative techniques to make their Pins even more eye-catching. Their videos flipped and spun, pleasantly disrupting the home feed with unexpected movement. Featuring clever copy and striking lifestyle images, the assets elevated what could have been by-the-book insurance ads into something truly unique.
State Farm was also the first insurance brand on Pinterest to use collections ads. They pioneered a new way to use the format, featuring different articles and lifestyle content to help educate viewers about why they should get life insurance.
“
We’ve found creative ways to connect with Millennials and Gen Xers on Pinterest during key life moments. We’ll continue developing organic Pins along with ads to meet our audience where they're already consuming content. This strategy has helped maintain relevancy, drive more engagement and earn higher quality clicks.”
Liza Hawkins
Marketing Analyst, State Farm
Keeping creative fresh
Thanks to early success on the platform, State Farm ended up turning their presence into an ongoing initiative. As a way to keep things fresh, the team updates the always-on campaign regularly, adding four to five new pieces of Pin creative per month. All the ads link either to the State Farm Pinterest profile or to product pages and educational articles on statefarm.com, to encourage engagement and drive website traffic.
When COVID-19 led to restrictions nationwide, State Farm and TMA quickly adjusted their strategy to respond to changes in Pinner behavior. As Pinners started planning COVID-safe vacations, for example, the team created Pins about road trips—and how State Farm can help put their minds at ease.
Tips for your next campaign
Try these Pinterest best practices to get more out of your ads:
1.
Use Pinterest insights on life moments to keep a pulse on what Pinners are looking for.
2.
Break out of your comfort zone periodically to try something new. Surprise your audience with unexpected, visually arresting techniques. You can see some great examples on our creative strategy team’s boards.