Iggy Pop reveals 'Little Iggy' in new £30million swiftcover.com ad campaign
Friday, 08 January 2010
Legendary rocker Iggy Pop returns to British TV screens to reveal 'Little Iggy' in a new £30million advertising campaign for motor insurer swiftcover.com. The adverts, following on from last year's controversial campaign, features Iggy and his alter-ego - an impatient, chaos causing, mini-me Iggy Pop puppet created by the people behind the legendary Spitting Image.
The campaign was developed by ad agency MWO with the punk icon's input and will see Iggy taking a road trip in a Swiftcovered Jaguar and even playing golf - in true Iggy maverick style - along with his crazy new side-kick. Iggy and 'Little Iggy' - voiced by the cult legend himself ? will be seen on TV, radio, billboards and online, including social media activity featuring exclusive 'backstage footage'.
Iggy Pop fronted swiftcover.com's 2009 campaign, which promoted the company's fast online insurance service with the tag-line 'Get A Life', helping to increase car insurance sales by a third over the previous year. The campaign coincided with record sales of his latest album, Preliminaires, and the announcement of his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with The Stooges later this year (2010).
Despite predictable cries of 'sell-out' from certain quarters following the 2009 campaign, Tina Shortle, swiftcover.com's marketing director, said Iggy was still keen to star in this year's adverts. She says: "Iggy loved the fact that last year's campaign stirred up a lot of emotion, so this year we've played on the controversy with even more irreverent humour. The introduction of 'Little Iggy' allowed Iggy to play against type and become the chilled-out, golf-playing rock star whilst 'Little Iggy' causes havoc".
Iggy himself has been extremely supportive of the swiftcover.com ads, recently telling Classic Rock magazine: "I had a ball. Since I was six years old I wanted to be in an advert. Ever since our first Stooges album I thought: 'Why doesn't somebody hire me to do an advert? I can sell s*** better than the zombies on TV!'"
Shortle continues: "Let's face it, car insurance, although essential, isn't that exciting, but that's no reason for car insurance adverts to be dull. The theme of the campaign continues to be about getting your insurance sorted quickly so that you can 'Get A Life' and so this year swiftcover.com will unleash a wealth of activities, sponsorships and special online content encouraging people to do just that!"
Stills from the campaign and copies of the adverts are available by contacting swiftcover@agencybrazil.com
ENDS
Notes to Editors
For press enquiries please contact:
Joshua Van Raalte or Paul Beadle
Brazil (PR agency for swiftcover.com)
01865 556 000
swiftcover@agencybrazil.com
About Swiftcover:
Based in Cobham, Surrey and employing over 800 people, www.swiftcover.com started trading in June 2005 and was born out of a desire to revolutionise the general insurance market.
swiftcover.com offers car, travel and pet insurance online, and is Britain's only insurance company without call centres, which means that the cost savings can be passed directly onto the customer and premiums are kept low. In 2008 swiftcover.com featured as the cheapest insurance quote on the comparison website moneysupermarket.com more often than any other insurer.
This powerful operating model combined with successful marketing and competitive pricing has proven to be a tremendous success. In 2008 swiftcover.com achieved over half a million live policies and in May 2009 sold their one millionth policy. They are considered to be the fastest growing insurer in the UK.
In 2007, AXA UK acquired swiftcover.com. It is now a wholly owned subsidiary of AXA Insurance UK PLC which forms part of AXA Group.
About AXA:
AXA UK is a part of the AXA Group. AXA is a world leader in financial protection. AXA's operations are diverse with major operations in Western Europe, North America and the Asia/Pacific area. AXA employs 120,000 staff and tied agents and, as of June 30 2006, had €1,091 billion in assets under management. AXA reported total IFRS revenues of €72 billion and IFRS underlying earnings of €3,258 million for the full year 2005. Our previous company performance is not a guide to how we may perform in the future.
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