Most Creative Marketers: Mark Evans

In 2014, Direct Line needed fixing. It had “lost its relevance and its edge,” says Evans. Price comparison websites had undermined the direct insurance business pioneered by the brand, halving its market share and delivering five years of decline.

The reprise of Harvey Keitel’s Winston Wolf “The Fixer” character – with the permission of Pulp Fiction director Quentin Tarantino – was an ideal allegory for its intention to eliminate the hassle from customers’ lives, and a move that Evans still believes to have been his gutsiest creative play.

“Using a gangster as a metaphor for our intent for Direct Line could be described as a stretch, particularly in what is one of the lowest-trust sectors of the economy. For its audacity, this is still my favourite bold move from a creative perspective. There were hundreds of reasons why it shouldn't or couldn't have worked, but in the end, it was perhaps the most transformational campaign that I’ve been involved in,” Evans says.

The campaign rapidly reversed Direct Line’s downward trajectory. In addition to strong commercial success, it also helped restore confidence in the business. Right up to the launch of the campaign, Evans remembers a prevailing sense of “can we really do this?” but that sentiment changed, and the marketing team had its mojo back. Winning the first-ever IPA effectiveness gold award for an insurance brand was the cherry on top of the cake, Evans says.

“The experience taught me that we need to trust our instinct whenever we have that hairs-on-the-back-of-your-neck moment in a creative pitch. Even if it seems incongruous or risky, the very fact that it has stirred something in you is a clue that maybe you have something special in your hands,” Evans says.

Now tell me what you really think

The brand’s relationship with Saatchi & Saatchi, which began with this campaign, is still going strong. But the ongoing connection between the agency and client owes a lot to the chemistry at those initial meetings.

There had already been three chemistry meetings with three other agencies, Evans remembers; “they’d all been a bit blah, blah, blah, telling the client what they think the client wants to hear” but with Saatchi & Saatchi, he says, he sensed a spark of energy.

“Then I asked them to tell us what they really thought. And Richard Huntington [Saatchi & Saatchi’s chairman and chief strategy officer] went into a long rant about being mugged in Vietnam. He said, ‘I didn't want somebody to put an arm around me’ – by this point he was banging the desk – he said, ‘I just wanted somebody to fix it’. And that started the conversation,” says Evans.

Evans explains that the campaign has a special place in his heart. It came from the creative genius of the late Paul Silburn, “on the back of a great brief and great chemistry sessions, which reminds me that breakthrough creative work often entails a bit of planned-for magic.”

From the very beginning there's been “good straight talking” between Saatchi & Saatchi and Direct Line, says Evans, which reminds him of a book he’s read called Radical Candor by Kim Scott. The author says to get the best work, the client-agency partnership must be a strategic partnership where both sides are able to challenge each other, because they really care about the outcomes.

Where the magic happens

“That's where the magic happens. We want somebody who will challenge us. Successful agency and client partnerships are underpinned by strong challenges to each other, because both care passionately about getting to the best possible outcome together. For agencies, this requires an all-in mentality where a bit of tension is welcomed, rather than telling the client what they think they want to hear,” says Evans.

Although the work was still “phenomenally effective, consistently beating quote targets and driving down cost per acquisition” by 2020, the brand was thinking about ways to change its approach. Having turned around the brand, it now needed to unlock new sources of growth – small businesses and young drivers in particular – and it needed to prove its superiority throughout the journey, not just at the point of need.

At this juncture, says Evans, the brand had issued an open brief about going in search of something better, which it acknowledged it “may or may not find”.

Where “The Fixer” had shown Direct Line was good at solving problems, the new work, also by Saatchi & Saatchi, “We’re on it”, was built to show Direct Line is so much better at solving problems that it puts the world’s greatest problem-solvers out of business, even superheroes like RoboCop and Bumblebee.

Fizzing time of year

Today, says Evans, under the stewardship of marketing director Kerry Chilvers and team, the new campaigns are in production across the companies’ major brands – Direct Line, Churchill, and also Green Flag, for which Engine is the long-standing creative agency partner.

“It's that fizzing time of year when we are putting in place the work that will define the year ahead – and we have some belters,” he says, with new work out in May and July. The work, explains Evans, will build on the platforms already created, rather than taking a new direction, with longevity the key.

Talking to chief marketers, Evans believes this is part of a wider strategic trend. He believes there has been a rebalance towards long-term brand building, rather than an over focus on short-term performance.

“The downturn of the pandemic has reminded everyone that, after all, marketing is a demand generator and a lever of growth that should have appropriate share of voice,” he says. “However, the job of convincing the rest of the organisation that marketing is anything other than a colouring in department is never done. Despite this, there are lots of reasons to be optimistic that the future of marketing is positive in terms of its impact and influence upon growth and innovation, DEI and sustainability.”

How I see it: the world according to Mark Evans

Who is your creative hero or favourite piece of creativity?

Apple's “Here’s to The Crazy Ones” still comes out top for me. In 1997 it was light years ahead of the DEI conversation in saying that not only is difference good, but it is actually better. I still find it gut-wrenchingly inspirational. It is such a brilliant execution of a very simple but counter-cultural idea at that time, which is often at the heart of great creativity.

What’s been feeding your imagination lately?

It's my wife's 50th birthday coming up and I’ve been secretly beavering away compiling a photo album capturing the years. The gift of doing this is that it has brought many memories of people and places to the surface. Not least Central Park in New York, where we’ve spent lots of happy times over the years. I see it as a place of wonder – the yin to New York's yang, the calm amidst the hysteria, and a treasure trove of inspiration. Not least in Strawberry Fields – could there be any greater nourishment for the imagination?

What makes a good creative marketer?

Clearly, it's a lot about having good judgement to go for ideas that are stretching but not unrealistic or disconnected. This requires connecting the possibility of the creative idea with what's possible within an organisation. Particularly in a highly regulated service-based industry, advertising can act as a lightning rod for belief and purpose. It can be hugely galvanising, but it can't break the fundamentals of what's achievable or required in law. However, there is a sweet spot that stretches the elastic but doesn't snap it, and hence provides momentum and anticipation within the organisation.

What do you enjoy most about being a marketer?

I love the fact that marketing is constantly evolving as consumer needs and the media landscape both continue to change. Of course, it has its frustrations because there aren't many fixed points, but that is more than offset by the world of possibility. And the best thing is that this world of possibility attracts incredible people on both the client and agency sides. To be any good in marketing requires curiosity, imagination, and tenacity, so it's a brilliant bunch of people to hang out with and have as kindred spirits.