(Under)Writer in Residence

Client: Hiscox

Hiscox tasked COW to develop a creative campaign that showed the breadth and diversity of small businesses and claims that it covered.

Behind every small business claim there is a human story: pathos, tragedy, even comedy. And sometimes there is the absurd. Yet, written insurance claims are, by nature, brief, to the point, and technical. So, what if we could find a writer who could reinterpret the dry prose of small business claims to bring out the humour and human stories? Enter legendary punk poet, John Cooper Clarke. As Hiscox’s first ‘(Under)Writer in Residence’, John Cooper Clarke composed an anthology of five new poems based upon real-life insurance claims where Hiscox paid out to its customers. The poems were brought to life with content produced by COW Studio for earned and owned channels. The result was a slew of national and trade coverage, from The Times and the FT to BBC Radio Five Live, which resulted in record-breaking small business insurance online sales over both a single day and over a single week.