Legendary rocker Iggy Pop returns to British TV screens to reveal ‘Little Iggy’ in a new £30million advertising campaign for motor insurer swiftcover.com. The adverts, following on from last year’s controversial campaign, features Iggy and his alter-ego – an impatient, chaos causing, mini-me Iggy Pop puppet created by the people behind the legendary Spitting Image.
The campaign was developed by ad agency MWO with the punk icon’s input and will see Iggy taking a road trip in a Swiftcovered Jaguar and even playing golf – in true Iggy maverick style – along with his crazy new side-kick. Iggy and ‘Little Iggy’ – voiced by the cult legend himself – will be seen on TV, radio, billboards and online, including social media activity featuring exclusive ‘backstage footage’.
Iggy Pop fronted swiftcover.com’s 2009 campaign, which promoted the company’s fast online insurance service with the tag-line ‘Get A Life’, helping to increase car insurance sales by a third over the previous year. The campaign coincided with record sales of his latest album, Preliminaires, and the announcement of his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with The Stooges later this year (2010).
Despite predictable cries of ‘sell-out’ from certain quarters following the 2009 campaign, Tina Shortle, swiftcover.com’s marketing director, said Iggy was still keen to star in this year’s adverts. She says: “Iggy loved the fact that last year’s campaign stirred up a lot of emotion, so this year we’ve played on the controversy with even more irreverent humour. The introduction of ‘Little Iggy’ allowed Iggy to play against type and become the chilled-out, golf-playing rock star whilst ‘Little Iggy’ causes havoc”.
Iggy himself has been extremely supportive of the swiftcover.com ads, recently telling Classic Rock magazine: “I had a ball. Since I was six years old I wanted to be in an advert. Ever since our first Stooges album I thought: ‘Why doesn’t somebody hire me to do an advert? I can sell s*** better than the zombies on TV!'”
Shortle continues: “Let’s face it, car insurance, although essential, isn’t that exciting, but that’s no reason for car insurance adverts to be dull. The theme of the campaign continues to be about getting your insurance sorted quickly so that you can ‘Get A Life’ and so this year swiftcover.com will unleash a wealth of activities, sponsorships and special online content encouraging people to do just that!”
