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Challenge

Simply Business had historically relied on generic search and price comparison websites to drive business but recognised an opportunity to grow the number of customers shopping directly with the brand. To drive a renewed increase in demand, it needed to increase brand awareness via higher-visibility broadcast media channels. In 2022, TV was introduced as the channel which would deliver reach to Simply Business’ target audience in a premium and trusted brand environment.  

These initial moves into TV succeeded in increasing prompted brand awareness, but spontaneous awareness was still weak. In addition, Simply Business needed to find a way to make its core strengths a point of difference: delivering a simpler, better business insurance experience – aiming to save SMEs time and money with no compromise on quality.  

Our next campaign strategy needed to establish Simply Business as the leading name for small business insurance in as many minds as possible by delivering on the following goals: 

  • Increase spontaneous awareness 
  • Improve Simply Business’ ranking in brand tracking statements that have been shown to drive category consideration 
  • Increase policies sold and revenue via branded search terms 

Marketing Insight

Research conducted by Simply Business uncovered the strong emotional response experienced when knowing your business, and livelihood, is protected with tailored business insurance. Meanwhile, Thinkbox’s Earning Attention study shows that people are 20% more likely to remember what they hear than what they see, with sonic logos more resilient than visual ones. With this insight, Truant’s creative concept centred around a memorable play on Tina Turner’s 1980s hit ‘The Best’, which captures the feeling of knowing your business is protected. 

Putting a humorous spin on the well-known chorus, “Simply the best!” becomes “Simply Business!” which, amongst other lyric changes, creates a catchy song and ownable sonic brand trigger that will help small business owners remember where to turn for business insurance should they need support in finding cover. 

Media Innovation

Our media strategy used contextual advertising, placing Simply Business’ ad alongside TV programming that showed the euphoria of success, finding audiences in a celebratory mood. This meant buying premium spots within live sports events and in what we termed ‘skilled reality’ programming: reality shows that feature an element of competition.  

We timed the campaign launch to coincide with the start of the football season, when interest peaks and fan optimism is at its highest, debuting on Sky Sports during the Premier League’s opening game of Fulham vs Manchester United. To reach Simply Business’ key tradespeople audience, which accounts for over 20% of Simply Business’ total customer base (and who don’t solely support the big six clubs!), we placed spots across both high-profile Premier League games and English Football League. We secured a sports package with Sky which additionally gave us access to Premier League highlights on YouTube and all Sky-owned websites. The summer of sport didn’t stop there as we agreed a partnership with Channel 4, securing premium spots during its Paralympic coverage, including during the opening ceremony. Outside of sport, our TV planning focused on skilled reality across a range of shows and sales houses including Ant and Dec’s Limitless Win, Masked Singer, Master Chef and Richard Osman’s House of Games.  

To maximise the impact of the creative, we launched with a mix of 40” and 10” spots on TV. The longer 40” spots gave us the space to reinforce Simply Business’ key messaging. It was therefore used to build awareness during big live moments and hero spots, to gain reach and capture as much attention as possible. We then included 10” spots in our media plan to build frequency cost effectively and help the ‘Simply Bus-iness’ earworm stick in audiences’ minds.  

The campaign launch period focused on building reach and awareness via brand activity: prime spots and a heavy burst of activity. But this wasn’t just about a one-off burst. Our longer-term plan was to build sustained ad stock and top-of-mind awareness. To maximise impact over a longer period, we adopted a burst approach aligned with seasonal peaks in demand. We continued to contextually align spots with sports and skilled reality, but high-impact hero spots were eschewed in favour of lower-tier spots to give us a more consistent presence. The 40” and 10” creatives were dropped in favour of a 30” creative to deliver a consistent brand message without the cost premium. 

Media Innovation

Accelerating Growth

The campaign purpose was to grow key brand awareness metrics and drive specific brand perception statements to deliver business growth through direct policy bookings. The results of our approach were quite simply… the best! We demonstrated that a carefully crafted brand TV campaign with clear awareness and perception goals ultimately pays back in business revenue.  

Our carefully crafted brand tv campaign has seen Simply Business grow to record highs in both awareness and consideration, as more people than ever search ‘Simply Business’ and by direct from the digital broker.  

As of August 2025, the campaign has delivered a 50% and 28% increase in spontaneous and prompted awareness respectively, while consideration levels have increased by 18%.  

Against the brand perception statements, following our TV campaign Simply Business has increased its score for, “supports the success of small businesses” by 17%, placing it as the leader within its competitor set (better than all the rest). It has also increased its score for “stands out from the rest” by 15%. These statements align with the key purchase motivators small businesses look at when choosing who to take a policy out with. 

These drastic improvements in brand health are reflected in the Simply Business journey, as branded search has increased by 52% in this period – resulting in a +22% YoY growth in policies sold via brand search and a 9% growth in revenue via brand search YoY.