Insurance provider Esure returned to television screens on 15 April 2026 with its first major brand campaign in over a decade. It was created by creative agency Guy & Co with media planning and buying led by VCCP Media. The campaign, titled “Calm Down, Deer,” reimagines esure’s legendary early-2000s brand platform, built around Michael Winner’s catchphrase “Calm down, dear”, for a contemporary audience, replacing Winner with a new animated character named Dave O’Deer and the reassuring voice of television presenter Lorraine Kelly.
Dave O’Deer, designed by boutique animation studio Cahoots Studios, embodies the anxiety drivers and homeowners feel when faced with a stressful insurance claim moment. Kelly’s voice provides the calm counterpoint, positioning esure as an antidote to that uncertainty and bringing the brand promise “Be sure with esure” to life. The campaign centres on the brand’s SureSnap proposition, the ability for customers to upload claim photos digitally, thereby demonstrating how esure speeds up the process during difficult moments. Dave will appear across high-energy, sound-on environments including TV ad breaks, crowded social feeds and high-impact digital out-of-home sites across the UK.
The launch marks a significant strategic shift for esure following its acquisition by Ageas UK, which Gareth Haggerty, Head of Brand and Marketing at esure, described as taking “the handbrake off” marketing investment. Previously owned by private equity, the brand had been largely absent from above-the-line advertising. The campaign performed strongly in pre-launch testing, scoring within the top 2% of more than 1,000 consumer insurance advertisements tested by System1. Andrew Tindall, Chief Growth Officer at System1, described it as an example of how to “win by going against the grain” in a category where half of consumers feel nothing towards insurance advertising.
Sean Mulholland, Creative Director at Guy & Co, said the team spotted “a brilliant opportunity” in esure’s existing heritage, describing the new platform as “a powerful and ‘endeering’ way to create connection” in a traditionally low-engagement category.
