Is The Responsibility Project Being Responsible?
Post-advertising acolytes devote plenty of time to bashing the bankrupt practice of logo slapping, so it’s heartwarming to have an opportunity to praise a marketer—global insurer Liberty Mutual—for deploying a variety of original content in multiple channels, all with a shared core story. Liberty Mutual and its agency—Interpublic’s Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos in Boston—deserve close attention for trying, at least, to abide by some of the laws of the post-advertising age.Liberty Mutual's marketing is seemingly about standing for something substantive—doing the right thing. But Liberty Mutual’s multi-year effort to tell stories of “responsibility” falls short of dealing responsibly with the issue the insurer is raising. It never tackles major issues and never connects the dots between what the insurer is advocating and how it behaves. Liberty Mutual succeeds in many ways; but so far it has backed away from the huge win it could have had.
