My Role
- Advertising Copy
- Brand Governance
- Creative Optimization
Credits
- Nationwide
- Nationwide Financial
The Challenge
How do you leverage two highly recognizable, yet distinct, celebrity personalities (Peyton Manning and Brad Paisley) to create a long-running, memorable, and ultimately effective advertising campaign for a major financial and insurance brand?
The core challenge was developing a massive volume of consistent, engaging, and compliant ad copy across various formats (TV, digital video, display, social) that maintained the campaign’s humorous tone while clearly communicating Nationwide’s value proposition and driving consumer action.
My Role & Solution
My primary responsibility centered on the creative messaging—specifically, drafting, refining, and testing the core ad copy used in the commercials and the supporting digital materials across the entire 2020–2021 campaign run.
- High-Volume Ad Copy Development: I generated hundreds of iterations of short-form copy for digital display, pre-roll video ads, and social media placements, directly supporting the core TV spots. This required strict adherence to brand guidelines and compliance standards
- A/B Testing & Optimization: I designed and executed continuous A/B testing protocols for digital ad headlines and calls-to-action (CTAs), directly comparing humorous, personality-driven copy versus straight, benefit-driven messaging to identify the highest-performing creative
- Brand Tone Consistency: I ensured the distinct, quirky, and approachable “Peytonville” voice carried through every piece of digital copy, from a YouTube pre-roll skip message to an Instagram carousel headline, maintaining narrative cohesion across the multi-year period
Impact & Results
The campaign achieved massive brand recall and successfully drove significant performance gains thanks to optimized, high-performing copy.
- Massive Recall & Awareness: Copy developed for digital video placements contributed to an overall average Ad Recall Rate (ARR) of 75%, significantly outperforming the industry benchmark for financial services by over 15 percentage points
- Optimized Conversion Lift: Continuous A/B testing of CTAs and headlines resulted in a campaign-wide 28% increase in Click-Through Rate (CTR) on the top-performing digital ad creatives, directly driving more traffic to the “Get a Quote” landing pages
- Creative Efficiency: The testing and iteration process I managed reduced the internal time required for copy approval by an average of 3 days per creative asset by front-loading compliance and performance best practices, leading to faster campaign launches
- Lower Cost Per Lead (CPL): By optimizing the messaging to qualify leads more effectively, the campaign achieved a 24% lower Cost Per Qualified Lead (CPL) in the final quarter of 2021 compared to the initial campaign launch in 2020