AXA’s acquisition of XL Group Ltd. has been one of the biggest news stories for the reinsurance market in recent years, so the global campaign to announce the merger was hugely significant and sensitive. Each lead market required poignant and relevant communications, with a single set of creative to run across all markets. LEAP worked with creative agency Atomic and Ptarmigan Media to provide transcreation and cross-cultural validation, as well as digital design and production services, in order to support this defining campaign for AXA XL Catlin.
Stage 1 – Native insight
The launch would be predominantly B2B in focus with some B2C activities as well. A truly global marketing campaign, the messaging needed to resonate with audiences spanning the UK, Europe, USA, Latin America and Asia Pacific regions.
In order to meet this challenge, LEAP’s dedicated Language and Culture team coordinated an initial native insight stage. Our trusted in-market consultants ensured that both the overarching creative and the localised messages would be clearly and effectively relayed to all markets in question. These insights enabled the client to develop a creative approach with the confidence that the campaign would be well-received in key markets.
Stage 2 – Transcreation
LEAP’s Language and Culture experts prepared a comprehensive brief that included brand guidelines, information on the target audience for each market and a detailed explanation of the campaign’s aims. Next, our transcreation account managers brought together a specialist team of financial and creative writers, who used this brief and the original English copy as reference, in order to craft multiple creative copy options for their respective markets. This provided each local client team with an approved set of headlines and body copy phrasings from which they could select their preferred combination to be implemented in their local market campaigns.
LEAP’s Language and Culture team worked with the client’s creative agency to serve as AXA XL Catlin’s brand guardian, ensuring that all assets had a local flavour, while also maintaining brand cohesion and consistency across markets.
Stage 3 – Production and digital development
Hand-in-hand with our studio team, LEAP developed multi-faceted assets and delivered them through our integrated, streamlined workflow. Working with three creative themes, we built marketing materials for a multichannel mix including press, print, digital animated HTML banners, digital static ads, OOH and DOOH.
Our client’s creative agency commissioned a suite of illustrations for the press and print executions which we brought to life for animated digital display and DOOH activity. Restricted publisher specifications meant we were not able to utilise video content. To overcome this challenge, our senior digital development team used HTML5 hand coding to animate and create the seamless movements of the characters.
The result was a carefully considered, attractively executed series of localised global marketing messages that helped AXA XL Catlin announce its merger successfully.