The past year-plus has been good creatively in an unlikely product category–insurance. There’s the Farmers Insurance “Lord of Mishap” spot from Campbell Ewald, the Liberty Mutual pay-it-forward campaign from Hill Holliday and Travelers’ “Snowball” out of Fallon. “Snowball” not only garnered a primetime Emmy nomination but also was one of the entries helping Dante Ariola of MJZ to earn the DGA Award this year as best commercial director of 2006.
However, even the most stellar creative cannot buck reality. Consider Southern California, which has been hit hard by wildfires, with nearly 2,000 homes destroyed.
Thousands of claims have been filed as insurance companies will hopefully make residents victimized by the fire reasonably close to being whole again.
Yet beyond the immediate recovery and rebuilding efforts, there have been some disturbing rumblings. For one, some say that homeowners will find that claims they submit to insurers will result in higher rates or possibly dropped policies.
Whether this is fair or not is subject to debate. On one hand, the risks are high in insuring homes in areas prone to wildfires. On the flip side, according to reports in the Los Angeles Times, major carriers have been turning annual profits of $5 billion apiece from their home insurance policy business in California, translating into a staggeringly lucrative margin and a more than ample reserve to deal with major disasters and still turn a healthy profit.
Meanwhile there’s word that all claims end up in privately run databases that are accessed by the insurance industry to determine what rates they’ll charge–or if they’ll provide coverage at all. Thus a claim filed with one insurer can be used by another to raise premiums or deny coverage. Even if someone has never filed a claim, that person could face exorbitant rates or the prospect of no protection if he or she has bought a house where someone else submitted past claims–be it for a fire, an earthquake or anything.
Still there’s the school of thought that if a property has proven to be a risk, then insurers have the right to take that into account. The databases, though, don’t reflect if the new owners have made improvements to the property to mitigate that risk.
In the wake of the California wildfires, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said on the U.S. Senate floor that it’s become “pretty clear to me that we have to develop some catastrophic government-helped insurance. Allstate Insurance Company pulled out of California–because they said it’s catastrophe-prone…Allstate doesn’t want any part of it. So they are not insuring in California any longer [writing no more new homeowner policies]. Companies must not be allowed to cherry-pick the United States and only insure areas that are safe and secure, and say to other areas, ‘You’re on your own.'”
Thus the dilemma for agency creatives is simply no matter how great your work, how classic the slogan, it can be made to look foolish in light of reality. Consider the query which tags many Allstate commercials today: “Are you in good hands?”
“Se7en” Turns 30, Gets A Special Restoration From David Fincher For Its Re-Release
For David Fincher, seeing “Se7en” in 4K was an experience he can only describe as harrowing. That or a high school reunion.
“There are definitely moments that you go, ‘What was I thinking?’ Or ‘Why did I let this person have that hairdo’?” Fincher said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.
He’s OK with the film being a product of its time in most respects. But some things just could not stand in high-definition resolution.
“It was a little decrepit, to be honest,” said Fincher. “We needed to resuscitate it. There are things you can see in 4K HDR that you cannot see on a film print.”
Ever the perfectionist, he and a team got to work on a new restoration of the film for its 30th anniversary re-release. This weekend the restored “Se7en” will play on IMAX screens for the first time in the U.S. and Canada, and on Jan. 7, the 4K UHD home video version will be available as well.
The dark crime thriller written by Andrew Kevin Walker and starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman as a pair of detectives looking for a serial killer was somewhat of a career-reviver for Fincher, whose directorial debut “Alien 3” had not gone well. “Se7en” was not a sure thing: It was made for only $34 million (and only got that when Fincher managed to persuade studio execs to give up $3 million more). But it went on to earn more than $327 million, not accounting for inflation, and continues to influence the genre.
Fincher has over the years overseen several restorations of the film (including one for laser disc) but decided this needed to be the last. It’s why he insisted on an 8K scan that they could derive the 4K from. He wanted to ensure that it wouldn’t have to be repeated when screens get more... Read More