Admiral hands 10m brief to MindShare

Admiral Insurance has handed MindShare its £10m media planning and buying business from Mediavest Manchester following a pitch. The financial services company, which owns the Elephant.co.uk, Diamond and Admiral insurance brands, called a review in March. The business was last reviewed in 2002 when it was given to the Starcom group of companies including Mediavest Manchester. It previously used agencies including the independent TCS North.

Admiral’s spend is focused on TV while Diamond, a car insurance product for female drivers, targets its advertising in press. Elephant promotes its range of insurance products with direct response TV campaigns that feature an actor wearing an Elephant costume.

The insurer also owns price comparison website Confused.com, which last month lambasted the advertising of rival insurer Direct Line, as revealed on marketingweek.co.uk.

It branded the insurer “desperate” and “increasingly uncompetitive” after it ran a campaign calling price comparison sites “middlemen”, the online equivalent of insurance brokers with commission, jargon and forms. Admiral had a strong 2006, increasing its first-half profits by 24% on the back of strong performances by Elephant and Confused.com.

Admiral was launched in 1993 aiming to offer lower premiums. It targets people who pay high premiums such as young drivers, performance car drivers and city livers. Diamond launched its car insurance for women in 1997, with an online service following in 2000; Elephant launched in 2000 and has more than 350,000 customers. Creative for the Admiral brands is handled in-house.