Singlife and Budget Direct spar on FB over AXA ad, Etiqa jumps on the hijack

Singlife with Aviva and Budget Direct Insurace are having a fun little spar on Facebook.

Following Singlife with Aviva’s move in hijacking Budget Direct Insurance’s ST ad, the latter has posted a message on Singlife with Aviva's Facebook page saying “Thanks for sharing our message. We totally agree DIRECT is BETTER.” To the message Singlife with Aviva responded, “Glad we’re in agreement about a BETTER WAY to go about it.”

Shortly after MARKETING-INTERACTIVE reported on Budget Direct's print ad on ST, Singlife with Aviva took a screenshot of MARKETING-INTERACTIVE's article and ran a social ad saying, "Anyone can be direct. But a few can be better." The image also called for AXA customers to contact the company.

Meanwhile stealthily joining in on the conversation was Tiq by Etiqa Insurance which prides itself of making online insurance purchases simpler. In an Instagram post, the brand took a screen shot of Singlife with Aviva’s ad and added the caption “Direct with Better savings? TIQ off your private car insurance with us” playing of the words initially used by the two brands.

It also added “AXA customers, get MORE with us”, ending the post with a hastag #alwayshereforyou #friendly

Competition in Singapore market

The sparring on social and hijacking of each other’s ads isn’t a common sight seen in the Singapore insurance scene. But it isn’t completely new either with telcos in Singapore often showing their cheekier sides.

In 2020, MARKETING-INTERACTIVE saw a search word hijack spree when Singtel owned GOMO, a plan targeted at Millennial, hijacked search words such as "Circles.Life porting" on Google ad words. The ad cleverly said "Stop Circling. Go GOMO 40GB", linking to GOMO's official website.

Not one to miss out on the fun, TPG Mobile also joined the fun taking over keywords "circles life GOMO" which promptly saw an ad for TPG Mobile appear with the caption "Why pay MOore? - Get 50GB for $10 with TPG". The intentional capitalisation of "MO" seems to make a reference to GOMO's brand name (although the O could refer to Circles.Life's logo as well). 

Meanwhile, in 2017 when a customer decided to publicly break up with StarHub through a social media post only to start a relationship with Circles.Life, the latter decided to defend itself by saying it wasn’t the cause of the breakup and the relationship was “already broken”.

StarHub didn't sit silently either, adding on: "We have always loved you. All relationships are bound to have their complications."

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