Bibberty Baby

For nearly 10 years, Liberty Mutual has been doing ads on the boardwalk in front of the Statue of Liberty. The thread that ties the campaign together is “Truth Tellers”. Essentially, someone on that boardwalk is telling the audience a truth, in a humorous way, about how great it is to have Liberty Mutual Insurance. In recent years, that truth has been about how much money you can save by choosing Liberty.
The insight that people like to/want to/need to save money on their insurance is neither new nor earth-shattering. Of course, people are looking for that. So, in our world of the highly competitive insurance category, the insight has become second to the strategy and delivery system of the message between insurance carriers. Those with 2x or 3x the media spend of Liberty can afford to segment their ads to specific target markets. Liberty, on the other hand, uses the simplicity of one branded location and a simplicity of message to drive our point home.
The commercial, “Bibberty Baby” is a particularly unique spot for Liberty Mutual. It was born of great results for spots of the past. It’s sort of a Reese’s, two-great-tastes-that-taste-great-together type of thing. Years ago, Liberty had a spot featuring a bad actor who could not get any of his lines straight. The spot was cut after cut of him screwing up, even the name of the company, Bibberty Schmutual. That ad was a huge success for Bibberty. Er, Liberty. Well, more recently, our spot featuring a mom who had told so many people about how much money she saved with Liberty that her baby’s first word was “Liberty”, was also a huge success. Cue the Reese’s reference.
The creative team saw those results and created a spot that combines those two successful spots. What if the baby who only says, “Liberty” has an interaction with a guy who famously can’t say “Liberty” correctly? Turns out that what happens is silliness and savings ensue.