How to create a challenger brand

FWD Insurance

Competing with giants

FWD was a fintech upstart — Asia's first fully-online, direct to consumer insurance platform.

In an industry full of storied giants, they had no brand equity, no vast marketing war chest.

How could we make people give them a chance?

Loving the haters

Research showed high disapproval ratings for all brands — and the insurance-buying process.

Put simply: people hated getting insurance. (More than they hated visiting the dentist.)

Our task was not to create a brand that people would love.

It was to build an experience that would shut up and work.

A brand like no brand

Our CX goal: Gone in 60 secs

The product experience wasn’t meant to engage customers. (Certainly not ‘immerse’ them.)

It was designed to help them get what they need and leave. Quickly.

Complex made simple

5 products. 12 markets. Thousands of words.

Unpacking financial regulations and systems.

Breaking conventions with a conversational UI.

Testing, iterating, optimising the living pixels out of it.

Until users could zip through prototypes in 60 seconds.

KPIs? Sorted in 4 weeks.

In 3 months from launch, FWD hit their sales targets. For the whole year.

We had a quote-to-conversion rate of 23% — 8 times the industry average.

And our CX goal of delivering in 60 seconds? One customer set a record of 24 seconds.

Awards & credits

CX Asia Awards 2018 | Winner, Best Customer Experience (Insurance)

CX Asia Awards 2018 | Highly Commended, Best Customer Experience (Website)

Global Innovation Awards 2019 | Gold, Harnessing the power of technology

Agency: Dentsu Isobar Singapore

Executive Creative Director: Stan Lim

Associate Creative Director : Abhishek Prasad

Sr Art Director/UX Designer: Anushka Yadav

Art directors: Brenda Li, JM Tan

Copywriter: Samantha Tan

Technology Director: Fauzi R.