Who Is Buying Up AgencySpy?
March 25, 2008
No, no… Mamabistro hasn’t sold us out, yet. In fact, it’s more like a hostile take over… of sorts. Liberty Mutual, an insurance company that pimps the tagline “Responsibility. What your policy?,” is being irresponsible. The brand is buying up key words such as Paul Tilley and AgencySpy to drive traffic to their website. The blog The Tribble Agency was kind enough to let us know about all this weirdness yesterday, since some of the Google keywords appear on their site. See them here.
Hmm… mighty lost on this one. We got even more lost when we headed to the Responsibility Project homepage, which also features this story written by Kathy McManus, an award-winning broadcast journalist who has 25 years of reporting beneath her belt:
“It’s possible to be a Good Samaritan. But is it possible to be a not-good-enough Samaritan? A Canadian woman was recently confronted with that question when two killers accused her of not doing enough to save a man they had beaten and left for dead.”
Sorry. Confused. Why is an insurance company promoting and actively buying up keywords related to tragic deaths? Oh right. To sell life insurance. From their website:
“It all began when we ran a TV commercial about people doing things for strangers. The response was truly overwhelming. Thousands of emails and letters from people all over the country thanking us.
We thought, if one TV spot from Liberty Mutual can get people thinking and talking about responsibility, imagine what could happen if we went a step further? So we created a series of short films, and this website, as an exploration of what it means to do the right thing.
We believe that the more people think and talk about responsibility, and even debate what it means, the more it can affect how we live our daily lives. And perhaps, in this small way, together, we can make the world just a little better.”
Um, ‘allo? This isn’t a website about strangers doing good for strangers. It’s about creating a maelstrom around tragic deaths and encouraging sensationalism. Go back to the brainstorm room, Liberty. The first idea was much, much better.
March 25, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Oh please, please drop this. Let them go ahead and exploit the tragedy, but don’t add to it.
The guy deserves at least that much respect. From all of us.
March 25, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Exploit? Sorry, but we think this is worth mentioning. Trust. We are so sick of this that we have ignored every tiny bit of the original story that keeps resurfacing and it happens everyday. EVERYDAY.
However, a company, advertising themselves in this way is one – in our realm of coverage certainly. Two it directly involves our website (that’s “our” keyword). If it was your blog, you’d be making note of it to my friend.
It should be noted for all those reasons and cannot, should not be ignored. We’re not driving ratings, we’re telling you what’s going on and how we feel about it.
AS
March 25, 2008 at 5:00 pm
this is the worst kind of marketing. liberty mutual runs a weak campaign about doing the right thing and never once mentions how they do the right thing. the spots are just a waste of :30 seconds–plus the viewer has to suffer through one of the most mawkish songs every written. and now this? they can’t own responsibility just by talking about it–they, the company, have to do something. but watch the ads, nowhere do they talk about what they do. by the way, hill holiday, your new cvs campaign reeks of the same faux sentiment. and is also backed by another terribly cloying piece of music. please stop, you’re better than this. at least, you once were.
March 25, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Spy…
I was forced to post on this, even though I said I never wanted to go near the subject ever again. These people are fucking douchnozzles. I hope they burn in hell… No wonder this business is turning into shit!
Cheers/George
March 26, 2008 at 2:40 am
It’s ironic that one of Tilley’s last projects at DDB was overseeing the new campaign for State Farm Insurance. It makes Liberty Mutual’s actions all the more obscene. Liberty Mutual is using Tilley in a project that’s clearly designed to build their brand—yet it’s unlikely Tilley would ever have approved such a move, as he was quite loyal to the clients he serviced.
March 26, 2008 at 2:38 pm
I like the little films with a list of discussion points to delve into at dinner. Didaticism AND hipporacy all in one!
March 26, 2008 at 2:39 pm
…that’s “didacticism…”