1999 was a great year.  It was the year Catapult PR scooped its first PR award - a gold award won for a PR campaign devised and carried out for Primary Direct travel insurance.  That year, all North West Cream Award gold winners (the awards that later became PRide Awards), were potentially up for the biggest PR award of the evening - the Grand Prix Award.

Given that this was Catapult PR's first possible attempt at scooping this accolade, we didn't really expect too much, but things perked up when we heard the then IPR president say: "And the judges were particularly impressed with the way this agency managed to enliven seemingly unexciting subject matter".  At that point the penny dropped.  We were about to scoop the prestigious Grand Prix Award.  Sure enough, we did.

Looking back, this is a pretty sad indictment of financial services PR and insurance PR isn't it.  The world sees insurance in particular is extremely dull, grey, lacking in any real value and a bit of a pain in the backside, if the truth be known.  I must also be pretty sad, as I find insurance and financial services rather exciting.  That's probably why we've won so many PR awards for insurance providers and other institutions in financial services.

When I look back, I don't see a long grey stretch of time.  I remember how we literally catapulted Bennetts Motorcycle Insurance into the limelight by identifying a key loophole in the law in relation to diesel spillage.  Campaigning to clean up the roads allowed us to position Bennetts as a key industry spokesperson.

I also recall the way we created a PR campaign that enabled us to make Primary Direct insurance the number one player in the travel insurance market, using quirky techniques that made press sit up and notice.  I can well remember the 13,000+ football shirts we collected thanks to our Send Shirts To Skopje campaign for Yorkshire Building Society.  Using a pedigree in PR for football sponsors and Corporate Social Responsibility, we kept the ball rolling, quite literally, by creating our own version of the FA Cup.  Our PR won hearts and minds and made headlines across the country. 

Here's a contentious thought.  Insurance and financial services promotion and PR isn't dull, it's certain agencies that make it dull.  As Stephen Fry once said: "If you don't go over the top, how do you know what's over the hill?'  Taking a grey suited approach to financial services and insurance PR is going to result in a grey campaign.  Grey campaigns don't motivate people.  

Here's another thing to throw into the ring.  Some insurance companies and financial services providers know they need ideas, but then take the creative concept and think they know how to translate it, without using the brains behind it.  That just becomes a game of Chinese whispers - the PR gets lost in translation, quite literally.

This is a time to build brands in financial services, demonstrate commitment to sponsorship and local causes (not forgetting that the only good this will do you will come through maximising your sponsorship through PR) and to take a leap into the world of creative financial services public relations PR that an agency like Catapult PR can deliver.  Don't be the ones to be dubbed as "dull".  Financial services is full of human interest, so use it.  The excitement is out there - just go and track it down.