Is the Aviva Driving Challenge App the next Angry Birds?

Aviva has launched a new app that monitors your driving skills. The point of the app is that once you’ve driven 200 miles, you’ll get an individual driving score out of 10. Safer drivers scoring 7.1 or more could save an average of £150 on Aviva car insurance.


Pretty boring stuff right? Wrong.

The new app is being promoted on the basis of playful rivalry; whether that be between the family, partners, the sexes or the counties. For example, taglines like; 
"Who are the safest drivers, county or city folk" are plastered across the out of home material.

The television campaign, the first execution of Aviva's new ‘good thinking’ global brand strategy, features a family from Newport using the Aviva app to discover who is the safest driver. 

The next instalment of the campaign revealed which member of the Newport family won the driving challenge.  And a final instalment will highlight how by sharing their score with Aviva, customers can lower their premiums. 

The use of a real family, the story, and the interactive nature of this campaign has turned a bog standard marketing tool into the next Angry Birds. Okay, maybe not. But it has certainly got people downloading it with over 50,000 downloads in the first week. 

In recent times we have seen the success of "storyboard" adverts, with the most successful being Compare The Market's -"Compare The Meerkats." True, this will never last that long but the use of a likeable, relateable family helps audiences connect with the adverts and makes them more receptive to what is being advertised. Furthermore by focusing on the rivalry, as opposed to the app itself, makes the app seem as a fun tool to settle some long standing debates, not a means to get you to sign up to Aviva car insurance. 

The Aviva's marketing team and Adam&Eve,who created the ad, have created a campaign and app that is not only engaging but has successful effected consumer behaviour. Aviva has created an app that is not just functional i.e banking apps but thats also fun! Aviva understands that digital offerings should not be seen as supplementary, but as something that is really important on the customer journey.

Aviva wants to be a "digital first" company as it rolls out more online services.  As Aviva UK & Ireland customer marketing director Lindsay Forster explains,

"In the way we market and promote the brand we will be far more digitally-orientated". 

With the success of this current app and their plans for the future, Aviva is set to be front runners in the digital space!