Centraal Beheer Positioning: succesfully failing?

Who doesn’t know them, the commercials from Centraal Beheer. For decades capable of entertaining the public with absurd situations where indeed you’d be glad to be covered by a solid insurance. Each time, gems of ads that at least always manage to put a smile on your face. But what does Centraal Beheer actually stand for? What should I actually call them for? How does Centraal Beheer want to position itself?

Centraal Beheer positioning

This is what they say themselves: Centraal Beheer Achmea is nationally known as the insurance company from Apeldoorn. We are one of the largest insurers in the Netherlands and have direct and personal contact with our customers. We offer our customers certainty, convenience, and clarity.

Going back to their latest commercial. Here they sketch a situation where a young man is repeatedly bothered by his cuckoo clock. So much so that his daily routine, in this case, doing housework, is severely disturbed. Desperate, he chops the cuckoo clock into pieces and burns it in the fireplace. In front of the warm fireplace, he sees his just-destroyed clock being appraised at €90,000 on the program ‘Art and Kitsch’! We all recognize this as a ‘give Apeldoorn a call’ situation. Absolutely well thought out and truly hilarious, as you can see below:

But what should a consumer take away from this message? Other than that they are known as the insurer from Apeldoorn. What does this commercial say about this company? What does this say about their unique position relative to their competition? We can’t quite figure that out, or rather, not at all!

For example, does it mean that they also pay out for the self and deliberate destruction of personal property? Are they the insurer where it’s always a laughing matter? This doesn’t seem to be the case and certainly not desirable.

A good positioning ensures that the market (consumer) is able to consciously choose a service or product based on unique properties. What then are you choosing with Centraal Beheer? That they are in Apeldoorn? This seems completely irrelevant because why would you want to travel to the (head) office of your insurer? Okay, the term “just call Apeldoorn” will absolutely ensure a “top of mind” position among insurers, but does this also work when we specifically search for car, health, or home insurance? The question we therefore ask ourselves is whether a strong brand without values is really that strong?

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