John Lewis Insurance: The power of true brand extension marketing

This paper outlines an approach for organisations that want to extend existing brand equities into new categories.It sets out how the retailer John Lewis partnered with the insurer, RSA, to create a new, John Lewis-branded range of insurance products to cut through with consumers in a category where the existing providers were often fighting to win business by offering the cheapest quotes.The strategy used advertising, including the celebrated 'Tiny Dancer' TV spot, and a drip feed media policy that focused on premium placements and regional upweighting. John Lewis Insurance earned 1.17 in insurance commissions for every 1 spent on advertising, and generated an estimated 16.7m of incremental sales for its retailer parent.