SH1T, are you in an advert? [How I came to star in an insurance advertising campaign]

Funnily enough that’s the message that was waiting on my phone when I left the gym last weekend. It was from a friend of mine who had been scrolling through Instagram and had seen my face pop up promoting business insurance for AXA.

He had then got in an argument with his partner about whether or not it was me so had resolved to message me to validate who was right.

“Er, maybe” was my answer. “Send me a screen grab and I’ll let you know”

It’s not that I didn’t know whether I was in an advert or not, it’s just that I hadn’t expected the advert to go live so early in January and that’s what had thrown me 😳.

Once, he sent the picture through then I knew immediately that AXA had launched the campaign a bit earlier than anticipated and now my face was all over social media.

Across the rest of the weekend I was inundated with messages from people I know telling me that they’d just seen me on a Facebook ad as they scrolled through their feed; that my face had come up while they were searching for something on Google and that there I was as a banner by the side of a YouTube video. It was fun stuff for a Saturday I can tell you.

How did I get to be in an insurance advert?

To understand how this came about let’s roll back a year to December 2020. I had just taken out my first business insurance for Shiageto Consulting. It was with AXA and not long after that I received a generic email from them asking if I was interested in possibly being a face for a new advertising campaign that they were going to run.

They were looking for a real small business owner who would be happy to have their company in the campaign. If I was keen, I was to send in a short video introducing myself and my business and they would pick one person from all the applicants.

As luck would have it, I had just that week made a video on a similar topic for a client’s away day so, with a little bit of editing, I was able to send it through to them with no problems.

After a few months without a response I just assumed that I had not been selected and carried on with my life; then, come the summer, I received another email from AXA.

It informed me that although I hadn’t been selected for the advert, they had been impressed by my video and as a result were keen to invite me to take part in a new podcast series they were making called “Mind Your Small Business”.

I naturally agreed (I mean who doesn’t love a little bit of free publicity for their business) and before I know it I ended up chatting about all things to do with tax in episode 6 of the series.

Now I would never consider myself a tax expert but I managed to bluff my way through the episode to sufficient degree (and say a few things that were deemed actually quite useful) that not long after I got approached again but this time about making “A Day In The Life Of” video for AXA’s support of National Small Business Week in early December 2021.

They wanted me to bring to life the world of Shiageto Consulting and what I, as a small business owner, get up to each day. With nothing more than my trusty phone, I recorded excerpts from across a range of days in November (apologies for breaking the fourth wall of how “A Day In The Life Of” is made) and then edited them together to get this beauty.

Once again I got a very positive response from AXA and this led to the big invite to be the face of their new social media advertising campaign for the first half of 2022. Wahoo!!!! My modelling career could finally take off 😊.

Behind the scenes of a photoshoot

After a bit of back and forth, 2 days of photography were booked in at a replica office in Central London for late November 2021. In preparation, I was sent a “treatment” (basically an outline of different scenes they wanted to shoot), direction on the clothing I should wear for each scene and other instructions.

On the first day of the shoot, I turned up bright and early to find a small army of people prepping. They were dressing the fake office with brand new furniture and soft furnishings, adapting the lighting, and much more. They had literally brought everything with them including plants, croissants, pens, all to be used in the shoot.

Each scene was carefully set up and I was then directed where to stand and how to hold myself.

Now, coming from a middle eastern family who love to take photos I thought I was pretty used to having my picture taken but this was on another level.

Each scene must have required over two thousand photos.

“Can you move your left hand up an inch?” , “Can you balance the phone on your other knee?” , “Can we roll up the sleeves please?” , “Can someone take the shine off his right ear?” , and on and on…

We took photos of me in a kitchen grabbing a coffee, me relaxing on a sofa reading the news, me at a desk preparing some work, me running a virtual call, me running a workshop with clients (these were just extras not real clients), me grabbing lunch out in the street, me sitting in a park on the phone, me crossing the road, and more.

It was 2 solid days of photos and I never thought just smiling so much would be so tiring. Still after 2 days, it was a wrap and what’s more they had even allowed me to include some of my Shiageto branded goodies in the shoot (for an idea on what I mean by branded goodies, check this out and this).

After the shoot, we just wait…

That was it, the end of my involvement; I was told that the campaign would be going live at the end of January and I should just sit back and wait. I was to have no say in which photos they chose, where they used them or even what they wrote about me. That said, they did conduct a very nice interview which they’ve put up on their website.

So with my brief 15 minutes of fame out of the way, I went back to the day job of actually running my business and forgot all about it until last weekend when the first message on my phone was “SH1T, ARE YOU IN AN ADVERT”.

Wait! There’s more…

It seems that the initial response to the campaign has been better than even expected, so much so that I’ve just been asked by AXA if I would be happy to take part in another photo shoot.

They have decided to extend the campaign beyond just social media and are commissioning some new photos for billboards, posters and potentially magazines. They also asked for a couple more videos to front a new series they are doing about advice for small business owners. This is crazy!

But, who am I to say no. So, readers, later this month I’ll be back in the studio for my next 15 minutes of fame. What happens next, I don’t really know but stay tuned to the blogs and videos and I’ll continue to share it with you as it happens…

All I can say is that running Shiageto remains my focus so don’t you worry about that.

Faris is the CEO and Founder of Shiageto Consulting, an innovative consultancy that helps firms and individuals sharpen their effectiveness. Connect with him here

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