FBD Insurance has launched the latest iteration of its campaign to support Irish SMEs by featuring them in a nationwide campaign.
Run in partnership with creative agency The Public House and media agency PHD Media, the initiative is now in its third year.
Called “Fuelling Business Dreams,” it features 14 small and medium-sized enterprises from across Ireland, each receiving a bespoke advertising campaign aimed at helping them reach new customers and achieve their next stage of growth.
The integrated campaign spans radio, press, digital, social media and video-on-demand channels, with each participating business receiving tailored creative designed to tell its story and encourage consumers to visit, book, buy or engage with the brand.
While the campaign showcases 14 SMEs, the creative team said it also provided support to another small business behind the scenes.
To bring the campaign to life, FBD Insurance and The Public House commissioned Irish illustrator Lauren O’Neill to create a series of bespoke illustrations for every participating business. Over a ten-week period, O’Neill hand-crafted portraits of the business owners and visualised their ambitions through personalised dreamscape artwork.
The approach was intended to reinforce the campaign’s focus on entrepreneurship while supporting the work of an independent creative professional.
“Dreaming is a very creative, human thing,” said O’Neill. “Everyone featured in this campaign had the imagination and ambition to grow their business, traits that AI doesn’t have on its own. It was so nice to be asked to capture that. The storytelling and characters that this project highlights made it a dream brief for me.”
Nicola Ging, senior marketing manager at FBD Insurance, said supporting Irish businesses has long been central to the insurer’s purpose.
“Supporting Irish businesses has been at the heart of FBD for the last 50 years,” she said. “With this campaign, we wanted to make sure that the support felt real and tangible by helping the SMEs reach new customers and continue growing their businesses.”
Paul Kinsella, senior art director at The Public House, said the agency intentionally moved away from conventional business advertising. “So much business advertising looks and feels the same,” he said. “With this campaign we very deliberately took a bespoke, handcrafted approach. Not just because it’s the most genuine way of visualising real people’s dreams, but because it was also a way of actually supporting them.”
Credits:
Agency: The Public House
Executive Creative Director: Rob Maguire
Associate Creative Director: Niamh Ryan
Snr. Art Director: Paul Kinsella
Snr. Copywriter: Blaise Hoban
Head of Design: Eimear O’Sullivan
Motion Graphics Designer: Kevin Hughes
Head of Strategy: Sarah Walsh
Managing Director: Kerrie Sweeney
Account Director: Rebecca Mullen
Client: FBD Insurance
Head of Marketing: Sharon Treanor
Senior Marketing Manager: Nicola Ging
BTL Marketing Lead: Tara MacSharry
Media Lead: Cliodhna Gough
Production:
llustrator: Lauren O’Neill
Videographer: David Lynch
Media: PHD Media
Business Director: David Scott-Lennon
Account Director: Shane McCaul
Senior Account Manager: Casey Keane
Account Executive: Molly Daly
