LV= Cost of a Child - from cradle to college

Achieving mass media appeal, year on year, to generate brand awareness and create the “talkability factor” around financial protection is not an easy task.  With the inception of the Cost of a Child campaign eight years ago for LV=, Lansons ensured they had a flagship campaign to “own” an issue close to many people’s hearts, and that would create a buzz and generate coverage in mainstream news channels, and not just within the financial pages. It is a topic that LV= has become synonymous with and we frequently get asked by journalists when the next report is due.  The key findings also get reported throughout the year in broader editorial, as we saw in April on Channel 4 when Super Scrimpers used the key stats two months after they were covered in news.

Now in its eight year, our task was to maximise the campaign and create a programme that enabled us to get the LV= Cost of a Child brand in the media throughout the year.  By creating timely quarterly news stories associated with the “costs of” key periods in families’ finances including back to school; school holidays and Christmas, tied to the news agenda (for example, rising tuition fees and the abolition of child benefit for higher rate taxpayers) meant we had a regular news flow.  

Over the last few years we have introduced new ways to reach LV=’s audience, and for this campaign we employed engaging tactics including a webcast and a morning of regional radio interviews hosted in association with parenting website, Gurgle; posting discussion on Twitter to create an online buzz and a dedicated microsite to host the Cost of a Child findings.  We also created an audio of parents at a baby and toddler group discussing their experiences to pitch alongside our spokespeople interviews, for more engaging content.

Overall the campaign secured 285 pieces of coverage including 26 nationals and the webcast was streamed to 15 sites.

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