DirectAsia.com swings into action with Robin Hood in campaign via Alchemy Asia Hong Kong

DirectAsia.com believes that advertising by the insurance industry in Asia has relied too heavily on traditional imagery. Alchemy Asia (Hong Kong) has  put forward the gallant and chivalrous Robin Hood as the new spokeshero for DirectAsia.com – an online insurance company.

Simon Birch, CEO of DirectAsia.com, said: “So far, advertising for insurance here has remained traditional and rather boring. You know the ones with impossibly good looking families with perfect teeth standing under umbrellas etc.. Our latest campaign aims to change all that, as well as change people’s negative perceptions about the way insurance is done.”

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Alchemy decided that the Robin Hood character would best represent the values of DirectAsia.com.

Creative Director Bennett Leung says: “Robin Hood is the perfect character to represent DirectAsia.com. He fights for the rights of the people. He’s a challenger.  We also wanted to make him fun and engaging by modernizing him and giving him an interesting personality with a rich back-story. He’s not one-dimensional.”

Together, Alchemy Asia and BENT IMAGE LAB (Portland) fleshed out the CGI animated Robin Hood character’s look and feel. Alchemy Asia then wrote the script for the commercial that would introduce the character while also bringing out the brand’s values.  BENT IMAGE LAB produced the commercial in conjunction with TRIBE (Shanghai).

“The idea was to introduce Robin Hood as this guy who loves to give money back to the people but he is not the typical Robin Hood,” says BENT Director Rob Shaw. “He’s got a big gut and he’s a little bit more of a lovable bumbler. He imagines himself to be this suave, charming hero, but really he is a little clumsy and that’s what makes him endearing.”

In “Parking Lot”, the quirky hero swings triumphantly from car to car in the early morning hours as he tries to quietly leave savings under the windshield wipers of DirectAsia.com customers. Of course, being Robin, he clumsily slips off a car triggering its alarm and waking the family. The commercial interjects the animated CGI Robin into live action environments. The biggest challenge using CGI and live action in tandem is in pre-production, we have to really think out every detail of the shot,” says Alchemy Asia Creative Director Christopher Chan. “But the great thing about that is we can get Robin to do anything!”

Next year, DirectAsia.com plans on releasing a second commercial that continues the tale of Robin Hood and the DirectAsia.com brand. The campaign launches in Singapore (May 20th, 2013 – online only), Hong Kong (June 3rd, 2013), and Thailand (July 2013).

Client: DirectAsia.com

Producer: Andrew Harvey of BENT IMAGE LAB