2024 Hurricane Season Campaign

Fact: when a hurricane hits, those with flood insurance recover faster. Since most basic homeowners and renters insurance policies don’t cover flood damage, many people who don’t have flood insurance assume they don’t need this vital protection. Going into hurricane season, it was essential for FEMA to educate residents in hurricane-prone states about the rising risk of flooding and encourage them to purchase a flood insurance policy via the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

The target audiences for the six-month campaign were residents and insurance agents in states within FEMA Region 4 (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina) and FEMA Region 6 (Louisiana, Texas) who are at risk and not properly educated on the protections flood insurance provides. From April through November 2024, FEMA deployed diversified media tactics including strategic radio placements, web and digital advertisements, interviews with local radio and television outlets, emails to insurance agents, social assets, and other materials targeting 48 million residents in more than 195 counties.

This year’s campaign theme, “Your Winning Choice,” framed the choice to get flood insurance as exciting, actionable and transformative. To reinforce the “winning” theme, the team added bright, game-like art direction such as confetti and quirky visuals to emphasize the ability to bounce back as a win. To optimize its outreach, the NFIP communicated flood risk messages in English, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Haitian Creole, and Vietnamese. Our paid media campaigns all performed above the average campaign metrics. Click-through rates for all Weather Channel digital ad units were 1.34% compared with 0.58% CTR in 2023 – a 2.32% increase. The Mobile Web Integrated Marquee unit for the Weather Channel had a CTR of 3.82%. This is over 3x higher than the platform benchmark. The Weather Channel confirmed this to be the highest CTR they have seen for this advertising unit. The four-hour earned media tour resulted in 23 TV and radio interviews, which aired 99 times and reached more than 4.3 million viewers and listeners. Our original English and Spanish audio news release resulted in 1,099 airings, reaching more than 28.4 million listeners.