Canadian Direct Insurance makes some Noise

June 22, 2010

By Eve Lazarus

Canadian Direct Insurance has appointed Noise as its agency of record. Noise has worked as the Vancouver-based company's digital agency for the past six years, while Publicis Vancouver most recently handled creative.

Trisha Tyrrell, senior manager, business development, said Noise will handle all creative including television, print and radio, as well as develop marketing strategies to increase brand awareness.

"After working with multiple agencies for the past few years, we wanted to find one strategic partner to handle all of our needs," she said. "With the way lines have blurred between traditional and digital advertising, we needed an agency capable of executing any kind of integrated campaign across any platform."

Trevor Carr, president and CEO at Vancouver-based Noise, said he's seeing more digital agencies in the U.S. leading marketing strategy and believes that trend will continue here in Canada. "We've always viewed ourselves as an agency first," he said. "We think everything is digital and it doesn't make a difference if it's television, radio or print. These days everything needs to be through a digital lens."

Canadian Direct names Noise as AOY

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by Katie Bailey

Canadian Direct Insurance has named Vancouver and Toronto-based digital agency Noise as its full-service agency of record.

The move, announced yesterday, brings all of Canadian Direct's marketing initiatives together under one provider. Noise will now handle traditional and digital campaign strategies, as well as media buying and planning.

The companies have been working together for six years on digital strategies, and in the past two years, the lines between traditional and digital media campaigns were blurring, so it made sense to go with a single agency for both, Trisha Tyrrell, senior manager, business development, Canadian Direct, tells MiC.

"They've been involved with our traditional campaigns for the past couple years and since they've been involved, I've found that their creative ideas and way of thinking were taking the lead," she explains. "[Going forward] I wasn't interested in working with two different agencies and I felt that Noise could do the job on both sides."

Canadian Direct's digital strategies have been almost too successful in recent years, Tyrrell says. When the insurer started driving people to its website to book their auto insurance online, it quickly consumed 60% of their business, she explains, which was too much for the company to handle. They've since dialed back their marketing creative drive-to-web and that part of the business now sits at a more-manageable 30%, she says.

Online tactics will continue to be a priority for Canadian Direct's media planning, a release on the announcement stated, but TV, print and radio will remain in the mix. The company declined to comment on its average media spend.