Berjaya Sompo launches Silent Guardians campaign

Berjaya Sompo Insurance Berhad (“Berjaya Sompo”), renowned general insurer in Malaysia is bringing back its thematic brand campaign, “Silent Guardians”.

It aims to build on the success of the 2018 campaign and to continue fostering closer relations with its stakeholders, while upholding and leveraging on the brand’s Japanese heritage and history.

In 2018, Berjaya Sompo introduced the “Silent Guardians”, which showcased five Japanese warriors (sumo, samurai, karateka, ninja and kendoka), which are seen following and protecting the “hero” character from his home to the airport in the campaign video.

In this year’s follow-on video, we see how the guardians come about in a prequel. The “hero” purchases five insurance products from Berjaya Sompo, via various channels – by speaking with an agent, online, and via Sally, Berjaya Sompo’s upcoming chatbot. The five guardians appear as he purchases each insurance product, signifying the protection he receives.

Customer experience at heart

The campaign is Berjaya Sompo’s unique way of telling its brand story through humour and illustrating the heart of the company to continuously provide products and services in the best interest of its customers.

It is also one of the many ways Berjaya Sompo is humanising insurance. By associating insurance products to each of the five Japanese warriors, the company is tapping into popular Japanese culture to connect with customers.

In addition to increasing convenience and accessibility, Berjaya Sompo aims to make insurance easier to understand and more relatable to the everyday Malaysian.

Other recent efforts to humanise insurance include the introduction of Berjaya Sompo’s mascot, Sompony, and the launch of SOMPO Moji, a fun and innovative emoji keyboard.

Both initiatives in 2018 enabled the company to challenge the notion that insurance is complex and boring.

“As we continue to digitalise and prioritise customer experiences, the new “Silent Guardians” campaign truly shows the variety of channels customers are able to receive protection from.

“We saw that our strategy to humanise insurance through this brand strategy had been successful and we made sure to include the element of humour again in this year’s campaign. We are proud of this campaign as it truly represents how Berjaya Sompo intends to serve its customers,” said Mr Tan Sek Kee, Chief Executive Officer of Berjaya Sompo.

As part of its digitalisation efforts, Berjaya Sompo has set up a digital team to support the introduction of new products online, such as the SOMPO Travel Plus, which is available for purchase on the official website.

While digital channels may provide customers with increased convenience and choice, Berjaya Sompo intends to maintain a high level of service through its agents, who are able to provide more personal and detailed interactions with customers regarding more comprehensive products.

Grounded in Japanese heritage

Berjaya Sompo values its century-old Japanese brand heritage, while embracing technological and product innovation. According to Mr Futoshi Hanahara, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Berjaya Sompo, the “Silent Guardians” campaign is part of SOMPO’s local and regional strategy to elevate brand standards and deliver its brand promise.

Mr. Hanahara explains, “We take pride in our Japanese heritage, which we fully embraced in the “Silent Guardians” thematic brand campaign video in 2018. We took an unconventional approach by using Japanese heroes and quirky humour to narrate the brand story.

The campaign delivered a strong message that Berjaya Sompo is commited to protecting its customers even when they don’t know it. I am very happy to see that Malaysians also enjoyed it, contributing to the campaign’s success and we hope to see this extending into 2019.”

Cutting through the clutter with humour

Post-campaign research in 2018 revealed that Berjaya Sompo is on the right track in positioning itself to become one of the top five general insurers in Malaysia.

Through its product innovation, digitalisation, branding and marketing efforts last year, Berjaya Sompo has successfully raised itself to being an underdog among its peers in the Malaysian general insurance industry.

“We know that insurance can be seen as complicated, uninteresting and rigid, which was why we wanted the campaign video to break through the clutter instead of being just another insurance advertisement.

“At Berjaya Sompo, we want people to see a more human side of insurance. We used emotional marketing to tap into happiness, heart, and humour to relay a serious topic to consumers. We worked with creative agency, Dentsu One on the creative ideation for the “Silent Guardians” thematic brand campaign to push boundaries of aspirational innovation in marketing,” said Mawarni Adam, Head of Brand, Marketing Communications and Customer Experience (CX) of Berjaya Sompo.

In 2018, the Silent Guardians thematic brand campaign video was one of the Top 3 YouTube videos in the financial services category, whereby 70% of post-campaign survey respondents liked the characters and had a high recall of the campaign that year.

Published on Berjaya Sompo’s website and YouTube Channel, the “Silent Guardians” prequel shares how Berjaya Sompo’s products can serve the daily needs of customers.

Berjaya Sompo Insurance Berhad (“Berjaya Sompo”), is the Malaysian operating entity and part of Sompo Holdings (Asia) Pte. Ltd, established in collaboration between Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Insurance and Berjaya Group in 2011.