How Research Informed an Important
New Video Storytelling Strategy

As the state’s leading provider of workers’ compensation insurance, Texas Mutual Insurance Company has a proven commitment to the communities, businesses and working families of Texas. Underpinned by research, not only was the On The Job campaign impactful from a creative standpoint, the employee-focused stories allowed for a more meaningful brand connection with policyholders and the greater community.

Texas Mutual has long supported research to inform the stories and messaging direction of its advertising. When new attitudinal research revealed how much its policyholders valued their employees, we knew it was time to shift focus.

We conceptualized this campaign prior to the pandemic, but had to pause it for more relevant messaging once the realities of 2020 took hold. As we began to resume the project, we found campaign stories that had pandemic ties. The additional challenge then became how to safely interview, photograph and film working people on the job – and keep everyone safe.

The research showed overwhelming agreement among Texas Mutual policyholders about the value of taking care of employees and the importance of workplace safety, a key tenet of Texas Mutual’s differentiating approach to workers’ compensation insurance and the heart of their brand. Furthermore, it was important to policyholders to have a reputation for caring about their employees and to be recognized as a great place to work. Lastly, policyholders believed that taking care of employees positively affected the financial performance of their company. We already knew that as the leading provider of workers’ compensation insurance in Texas, Texas Mutual was serving more than 75,000 employers across the state. The research showed the importance of the 1.5 million hard-working Texans covered by Texas Mutual, a diverse group of people with interesting jobs as varied as rodeo safety managers and ballet dancers.

After years of focusing Texas Mutual’s advertising messaging and visuals on workers’ compensation decision-makers, this new research led to a robust storytelling campaign showcasing the people Texas Mutual’s safety-focused insurance was protecting. And video was the richest way to give these stories the most depth, interest and authenticity, while also opening up new media distribution channels. We called the campaign On The Job.

This new campaign allowed us to showcase interesting jobs across a broad spectrum of industries and regions throughout Texas, demonstrating Texas Mutual’s workers’ comp expertise in all lines of work. Over the course of two-plus years, we featured 12 different employees in as many different industries.

With video at the heart of each story, we built an advertising campaign that included digital and programmatic ads, social media, public TV, radio and traditional print advertising. All placements directed the audience to a landing page on Texas Mutual’s website, where our long-form video stories lived. Each new featured story replaced its predecessor with the earlier content moving into a library of On the Job profiles on Texas Mutual’s site.

During the pandemic, we worked with an extremely lean production team, doing as much “pre-interviewing” as possible. COVID testing for the onsite crew and featured workers ensured everyone stayed safe and healthy.

Our final ads in the series featured multiple employees at once, reinforcing Texas Mutual’s expertise across industries and geographies.

Over a two-year period, the campaign drove more than 200,000 visits to the On The Job stories from millions of online impressions, in addition to offline media that included radio, TV and print advertising placements. The stories continue to live on Texas Mutual’s website. The images and stories from the campaign appear regularly in other internal and external communications from the company, because the focus on people is so central to Texas Mutual’s brand and values.

Follow-up attitudinal research has shown that prioritizing worker health and safety continues to be important to Texas Mutual policyholders, reinforcing alignment between the brand and its best customers.