The House of Atava – Online, we're all neighbours
Background
After a first year of successfully launching the Swedish insurance company Atava, the time had come to introduce their box fresh home insurance. Target group: Young urban people.
Challenge
When interviewing people from the target group, one thing became very clear: Home insurance is mainly “stolen stereos, leaking toilets, broken refrigerators and smashed windows.” Hardly anyone mentioned the home in itself.
As Atava’s core value is "Insures Fun" we wanted to put the focus on the fun part of home insurance. Not the accidents. Not the foul-ups.
This, along with fact that people never seem to think about their own homes when talking about home insurance: The challenge was to bring back “home” in home insurance.
Solution
With a smashing payoff ringing in our heads, "Online, we’re all neighbours", we started the build of a new type of house - on Internet - where anyone was welcome to move in. All they needed was a webcam.
The plot: Get into the house, broadcast yourself as much as possible and stay there as long as you can. If the viewers like you, you'll get their votes and get to stay another day. If not, you'll be evicted and replaced by someone from the housing queue. The audience decides.
Results
On August 20th, 2008 the House of Atava was ready to host its first nine settlers. At exactly 8 PM (Swedish time) on that day the house was introduced with a unanimous housewarming event in all nine apartments.
During a period of one month (30 days, 720 hours) of almost nonstop broadcasts the house had over 30 tenants, more than a hundred people waiting in line - in the housing queue. Plus a number of no less than 109.000 chat posts from the audience to the inhabitants.
The House of Atava was closed for renovation on September 20, 2008.
“Folks, we’ve just experienced the meeting of Big Brother and the YouTube-generation.”
Anonymous guest at The House of Atava
“Social Networking and Web 2.0, in a melting pot.”
Kaj, another guest at The House of Atava
