Founded in 1947 and headquartered in Washington DC, Clements Worldwide is an insurance provider for expatriates and international organisations, providing car, property, health, life, speciality, and high-risk insurance in over 170 countries.
It was due to our wonderful friends The Women’s Network and Dani Barge that we ended up under the noses of Clements Worldwide and were able to pitch for the animation work they required. We quoted for this, accompanying storyboarding, and illustration, which was provided by our longstanding collaborator and pencil genius, Katie Allen.
Of course, during a pandemic, it was not physically possible to fly out there, meet the team and get a feel for the company. This project was managed and executed purely via the internet, which was new for us. And the timescale was just three weeks, so we had to get cracking!
The Brief
Clements wanted two separate videos to advertise their car and personal property insurance services for expatriates and diplomats/service people working abroad. Both videos needed to illustrate the higher level of cover Clements offers, discuss the individual aspects of each policy, and explain the benefits of fully comprehensive cover.
We needed to create a style that was corporate but not stuffy or overly complex and that fit within the existing brand guidelines. The videos needed to illustrate the nuances of the policies: insuring people’s effects while they are abroad is surprisingly complicated with lots of facets! Our job was to break it down and make it easier to contextualise. The videos also needed to appeal to the American market, and so we drafted in the exceptional voice talents of Rob to narrate.
All Aboard!
To begin with, we storyboarded the whole project, agreeing on a style that reflected existing branding whilst adding some new elements. We concluded that the best way to showcase the services offered by Clements, was to create an illustrated ‘Clements Family’. The family, comprising two adults and two children, are at the core of the animations and allowed us to demonstrate the complex policies from a human point of view, making them relatable to the individual.
This worked really well for the personal property insurance. To show the nuances of the cover, we took our Clements Family and doubled them, splitting the screen with one family each side. We showed one family with full comprehensive Clements insurance and the other without, and the differences in their life experiences as a result.
The family were also subjected to the various disasters that could happen to their vehicle while abroad. With this video, we took the route of simply illustrating what was happening while Rob narrated and embellished. Our animation was not overly showy, we didn’t want mad effects and explosions distracting away from what was being said or the Clements corporate image. Or, of course, to cause any harm to ‘The Clements’…
There were some common elements across both policies, scenarios that could affect both vehicles and personal property. We found that illustrating and animating these individual scenarios was the best way to portray this. We kept the illustration simple so as not to distract from the narration.
The Finished Article
This project was a whirlwind in terms of timings; 250 hours of animating! But we are really happy with the finished pieces and thoroughly enjoyed working with Clements. It appears they enjoyed working with us too, as we have more collaborative projects in the pipeline!
You will be pleased to hear the Clements family came out unscathed (due to their level of insurance…) and are now to be occurring, and hopefully recognisable, characters across Clements’ videos, with more starring roles coming up. Hopefully this will be a long and fruitful partnership and, once the pandemic is controlled, we can visit Washington DC and the team in person.
Even when we brought last-minute changes and challenges to them, they always had a can-do attitude and tackled the challenges professionally. We are already planning several additional projects with lnkBlot and can't wait to see what new thinking they bring to them! Thank you, Jay, Mike, and Katie for being so awesome!
Etela Ivkovic
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