21Responses:

• Leigh

  

  Said on the 13 August 2007

  Right let me set the story straight with your comment. This advert was the brainchild of my younger brother Blake and his Design Partner Will who work for Inferno. This is the second advert he has done for Hiscox Insurance and was conceived before the floods in the UK so no its not in bad taste or rubbing salt into the wound, just bad timing from the weather. So maybe I’m bias cos its my little brother but no this advert is absolutely amazing. It made you want to watch it till the end and prevoked feeling from you. Isnt that what advertising is all about? Hiscox insurance policies cover what smaller insurance companies call ‘act of god’ claims, so like i said its not in bad taste just making a point to what their policies cover.

• Silky

  

  Said on the 14 August 2007

  Hi Leigh,

  Thanks for the comment and I’m glad you have such strong family loyalty.

  As I said, I think the quality of the advert itself is absolutely fantastic. I did sit and watch all the the end (although I sat and watched all to the end of the Sun BINGO one too). I think that Blake has done a very good job here.

  But my point was more that Hiscox could have made the decision not to run this advert given recent events. If slots were bought and paid for, could they not have chose to run an alternative advert at the very least?

  Do you know if Blake has any more Hiscox ads coming up?

• Leigh

  

  Said on the 14 August 2007

  Thankyou for the reply. As far as I know they have no plans for anymore at the moment but I doubt it’ll be the last we see. The running of the ad was down to Hiscox, Blakeand Will were the brains behind the actual advert. They needed the thunderstorms for the ad and was filmed on location in Toronto last month. Also the amount of money that Hiscox poured into the campaign I doubt that they would’ve pulled the ad as it got released across terrestrial, cable and satellite. And the whole point of them sticking to this would’ve been because of what has happened. I’m a trained designer and this is how the whole advertising thing works. Its to make the consumer think, remember and react to a product.

• Justin Moy

  

  Said on the 15 August 2007

  I like the Ad.

  Whats the music? I realy love it!

  JM

• John Doe

  

  Said on the 16 August 2007

  i work for hiscox and the ad was actually trimmed quite a bit as we were aware that the rain scenes might be a bit insensitive due to the recent floods. they were filmed at least a month before the floods occured. the ad originally had a much longer scene with the couple sitting on the cars and panned back with lots of other people in knee deep rain.

  The whole ad campaign cost millions and to pull the ad because of this would have been too costly. As Leigh said, blake and will done a fantastic job on the advert but i think our previous advert was much better anyway, this one i personally felt was a bit cheesy

• mark

  

  Said on the 17 August 2007

  the phrases ‘what makes something beutiful’ etc have nothing to do with insurance, is your insurance policy beutiful?

• Silky

  

  Said on the 18 August 2007

  Thanks for the comment John Doe, I hope that the millions that Hiscox spent are worth it.

• Samuel

  

  Said on the 21 August 2007

  Any chance of finding out about the music? I thought the advert was brilliant!

  Thanks

• AJ Batchelor

  

  Said on the 27 August 2007

  Great ad guys, any chance of finding out the music?

• David

  

  Said on the 30 August 2007

  Im also trying to find out who does the music….

• Silky

  

  Said on the 30 August 2007

  I think this is a job for Leigh.

  Leigh I don’t suppose you could ask your brother what the music is from the advert could you, please?

• Jack

  

  Said on the 31 August 2007

  High stumbled across this page looking for the music on the Hiscox advert… apparently its off Rebelski’s “Thanks for your Thoughts” album, track 4: “The Swarm”?????

• chris

  

  Said on the 4 October 2007

  Leigh, YOU ARE A F*CKING PRETENTIOUS PRICK.

• Leigh

  

  Said on the 4 October 2007

  Why am I as you so eloquently put it A F*CKING PRETENTIOUS PRICK for sticking up for my younger brother?

• tea

  

  Said on the 6 August 2008

  All of the above comments are just pure LULZ.

• Jo

  

  Said on the 19 August 2008

  It is indeed Rebelski’s “The Swarm”. Absolutely gorgeous advert – one of those ones that makes me walk back into the room to gawp at. Very few adverts these days make me buy the product that the ad is purporting to sell, but I do tend to investigate the music further! And thus I stumbled over this website

  Rebelski at Last.fm
  http://www.last.fm/music/Rebelski

• Josh

  

  Said on the 28 August 2008

  I’m sorry guys but i’m going to have to disagree with you about the sensitivity issue of the advert. Just because the advert shows rain & flooding doesn’t make it insensitive, it just offers a solution for a problem that is now a reality. Calling this advert insensitive would be the same as calling the government’s Anti-speeding campaign insensitive or the NSPCC adverts insensitive. They all merely address head on problems that we all face in our daily lives. To question adverts like this begs the question ‘Where do you draw the line?’ Should we not allow adverts for alcohol because its insensitive to those families that have had a loss due to alcoholism…? I think we all need to use a bit of common sense here.

• Mark

  

  Said on the 12 September 2008

  One day all adverts will be made this way

  Chris it’s OK to be wrong

• Kunle

  

  Said on the 13 March 2009

  They have done it again, only that this new one takes the biscuit! Their new advert, which is currently circulating in various publications, depicts a red spade with accompanying words hoping to convey the notion that Hiscox are a plain-speaking company that is as good as its word – an obvious play on the old adage of “calling a spade a spade”. This unfortunately represents a most astounding show of ignorance on the part of Hiscox as I expect that most people today are aware of the origin of that old saying which stems from the past when a ‘spade’ was actually a derogatory term used for black people.

  This advert would seem, to the more moderate sensibilities, to be just a terrible faux pas but considering the research power which must fuel the Hiscox engine; one wonders about the actual intent of this publication – could it in fact have a more deliberately sinister sub-text?

• CovertJellyfish

  

  Said on the 9 June 2009

  Well I am surprised. I know that the phrase “call a spade a spade” was introduced in to the english language in the mid sixteenth century. I know that we had spades back then, how else would you get a moat? But I’m sure the word spade wasn’t used as a derogatory term till the late ninteenth century. This leaves me with a connundrum. Either (a) There is some kind of weird time travel thing going on, or (b) you are wrong. Answers on a postcard please.

• rik o shea

  

  Said on the 15 June 2009

  hiscocks has just joined with herfanny what shall we call the new company?