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Last Performance
Agency Special / Auckland + Partners Life / Auckland + South Pacific Pictures / Auckland + Images & Sound / Auckland
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Category
Brand Partnerships
Annual ID
OS24_CE008S
About the Work
We needed to develop an approach that would get more NZers interested in life insurance.
THE STRATEGY
Our strategy was based on the following cultural insights about New Zealanders:
1. Hindsight is completely useless when you’re dead.
Hindsight is a powerful trigger when it comes to getting insurance more generally.
It’s often the hindsight from an accident, a break-in, an illness etc that sparks someone’s desire to get insurance. [8]
But in the case of life insurance, hindsight is completely useless, because the sad truth is …you’re already dead!
2. New Zealanders claim they don’t want to engage in death. But that simply isn’t true.
True crime podcasts, murder mysteries and dark comedies are hugely popular in NZ. [9]
So rather than use advertising to get people thinking about death, we needed to activate where people are already engaging with the subject matter.
The intended purpose of this campaign therefore became:
Dramatise that hindsight is useless when you’re dead, where New Zealanders are already engaging with death.
THE CREATIVE IDEA:
‘Last Performance’
A life insurance campaign masquerading as a television series, where murdered characters wake from the dead to share their regrets about not getting life insurance.
We partnered with NZ’s most popular murder mystery TV show– The Brokenwood Mysteries [10], to demonstrate the risk associated with an unexpected death, by using the murdered characters as spokespeople.
In every episode of the Brokenwood Mysteries someone dies and ends up in the morgue.
So at the end of each episode, before the credits, the murdered characters woke from the dead for one ‘last performance’ to share their regrets about not getting life insurance.
Every episode acted as a provocative piece of content, offering unique hindsight into the consequences of unexpected death reflective of the characters’ lives and reminded NZ that life isn’t scripted so it’s best to ‘Plan ahead and get life right’.
THE STRATEGY
Our strategy was based on the following cultural insights about New Zealanders:
1. Hindsight is completely useless when you’re dead.
Hindsight is a powerful trigger when it comes to getting insurance more generally.
It’s often the hindsight from an accident, a break-in, an illness etc that sparks someone’s desire to get insurance. [8]
But in the case of life insurance, hindsight is completely useless, because the sad truth is …you’re already dead!
2. New Zealanders claim they don’t want to engage in death. But that simply isn’t true.
True crime podcasts, murder mysteries and dark comedies are hugely popular in NZ. [9]
So rather than use advertising to get people thinking about death, we needed to activate where people are already engaging with the subject matter.
The intended purpose of this campaign therefore became:
Dramatise that hindsight is useless when you’re dead, where New Zealanders are already engaging with death.
THE CREATIVE IDEA:
‘Last Performance’
A life insurance campaign masquerading as a television series, where murdered characters wake from the dead to share their regrets about not getting life insurance.
We partnered with NZ’s most popular murder mystery TV show– The Brokenwood Mysteries [10], to demonstrate the risk associated with an unexpected death, by using the murdered characters as spokespeople.
In every episode of the Brokenwood Mysteries someone dies and ends up in the morgue.
So at the end of each episode, before the credits, the murdered characters woke from the dead for one ‘last performance’ to share their regrets about not getting life insurance.
Every episode acted as a provocative piece of content, offering unique hindsight into the consequences of unexpected death reflective of the characters’ lives and reminded NZ that life isn’t scripted so it’s best to ‘Plan ahead and get life right’.
2024 Awards
Total Points: 21
Silver Pencil
Credits
Agency
Special / Auckland
Client / Brand
Partners Life / Auckland
Production Company
South Pacific Pictures / Auckland
Music / Sound Production Company
Images & Sound / Auckland
Art Director
Till Dittmers
Chief Creative Officer
Jonathan McMahon
Lisa Fedyszyn
Copywriter
Jack Gravatt
Director
Mike Smith
Executive Producer
Kelly Martin
Sally Lankshear
Sally Campbell
Tim Balme
Producer
Jarl Devine
Creative Chairman, CEO NZ
Tony Bradbourne
Group Strategy Director
Jolene D'Souza
Nick Salter
Music Composer
Joel Haines
Partner & Chief Strategy Officer
Rory Gallery
Senior Producer
Casey King
Brand Coordinator
Sophie Broom
Business Director
Hannah Ross
Chief Customer Officer
Kris Ballantyne
General Manager
Tina Morgan
Group business Director
Hugo Parcell
Head of PR & Influence
Kelly Grindle
Head of Production
Katie Mortensen
Managing Director
Naomi Ballantyne
Marketing Communications Manager
Mika Ballantyne
Media Director
Briar Roswell
Senior Marketing Specialist
Alicia Pederson
Senior PR Director
Sarah Prigg
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