Car insurance, Home insurance, Life insurance at Direct Line
- 10th Jul 2007
- Leave a Comment
- Rant
Did I just see the worst TV ad in the world for Directline, the slogan said you won’t find us on any comparison website, which was rather ironic as the ad was shown in between Moneysupermarket and Gocompare.
Also I would like to add maybe just the reason you don’t advertise on comparitors, is that you are more expensive, I have moved my Car Insurance for my car and my wifes car in the last 12 months from Directline.
Marketing should always concentrate on the positives not the negatives
DaveN
11 Comments | Leave a comment »
I saw that ad the other night and I thought “what are they thinking?”. In what way would the inability to compare prices mean I would want to go with you?
Welcome to the mad world of insurance comparisons in the UK.
We’ve covered this and a few other topics at our insurance blog. There’s a particular post you might like on Confused and Direct Line.
I don’t totally agree with that marketing should always concentrate on the positives. If my competitor is selling an inferior product than mine at a higher price then I point it out to my customer to get them to buy from me.
flypitcher, you have to be careful with that thou, theirs is shit buy mine.. actually I did like theirs just wanted something a little different or closer to home..
DaveN
@DaveN, flypitcher
The problem here is not that companies are slagging others off. This normally leads to better consumer power through more competition (cf. the Bentley and Aston Martin ad campaigns for amusement).
It’s that the consumer gets so confused with the market and how it works, they have no idea what is going on. Most consumers don’t realise confused.com is owned by Admiral or that comparethemarket.com is owned by Budget… the list goes on…
You can’t knock Direct Line for this.
The reason the company was set up was to provide consumers with direct access to insurance without having to go via a broker. It’s easy to forget that before they came on the scene you’d have your annual trip down to “Swinton” to let them choose the best policy for you.
Their advertising has always reflected this. So pointing out that the comparison websites are just the brokers (or brokers for the brokers) under a different guise makes sense.
Of course the parent company then goes and blows this all out of the water by providing the insurance for Tesco, Churchill and loads of other ..ahem.. middlemen.
Now that is interesting. I never investigated direct line for my car insurance as I just assumed they would be called upon as part of moneysupermarket.com (who recommended me Bell - part of Admiral, funnily enough).
I always thought that Direct Line was Just Another Insurance Company, This is extremely interesting. I’ve probably been conned.
You find the Directline ads annoying? Surely nothing compares to that bloody head-wagging dog on Churchill’s? Vic Reeves has a lot to answer for. :)
It all seems very petty to me, I recently put an entry about this on my blog. If insurance proivders don’t want to appear on comparison sites then that’s up to them (of couse it will lead to the inevitable calls of them being uncompetitive) but there’s little point laying into price comparison websites, it won’t do them any long term harm, if anything they are getting free publicity.
Very funny when the TV ads show one after the other though, who arranged those ad placements should be shot (or applauded?)
I just found this blog while searching for Direct Line Insurance and had to comment. I’ve had more than my fair share of run ins with Direct Line over the last 14 months (as my site will show) and find it funny in the extreme when SEOs get annoyed at a company like this. We can get so much bad publicity for them and there’s nothing they can do about it.
I love SEO.
The car insurance adverts on tv do my head.
“Does searching for cheaper car insurance drive you crazy!” …um… not really - but the adverts certainly do!