The Old Dependable Is Depended Upon Once Again

The following is an excerpt from an article in:


The New York Times
Thursday, September 13, 2012

The Old Dependable Is Depended Upon Once Again

By STUART ELLIOTT

A NEW campaign for New York Life, from its new creative agency, expresses an idea that is tried and true.

What, you were expecting maybe new?

The television, print, digital and outdoor campaign, now under way, carries the theme “Keep good going,” which is meant to extol the virtues of buying life insurance and other financial products from the New York Life Insurance Company. The budget is estimated at $20 million through the end of the year.

The print advertisements that are part of the campaign detail the premise: “Consider all the good you do in your life. And all those it touches, supports and inspires. At New York Life, everything we do is to help you continue that good.”

The concept is brought to life through pithy sayings that are numbered as if part of an altruistic bucket list. For instance, No. 8 is “Be there for the ones who are there for you;” No. 17 is “If you love someone, act on it;” No. 27 is “Be the man your dog thinks you are;” No. 54 is “Simple actions often speak the loudest;” and No. 79 is “You’re always a role model to somebody.”

The “Pay it forward” intimations of “Keep good going” are reminiscent of other recent campaigns, among them one for Delta Air Lines, which carried the theme “Good goes around,” and one for another insurer, Liberty Mutual, which since 2006 has carried the theme “Responsibility. What’s your policy.”

Executives at New York Life and Euro RSCG New York, which replaced the New York office of Taxi as the insurer’s creative agency in December, call the new theme a better presentation of a thought that had been at the center of the ads created by Taxi New York, which described the purchase of a life insurance policy from New York Life as “a selfless gift for your family.”

For more, visit www.nytimes.com.