Somewhere in the remote Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica, a 101-year-old great-grandmother is making you look bad. Her name is Panchita, and by the time you finish your morning blog rounds, she has already cleared brush, chopped wood and made tortillas from scratch. And here’s the best part: She’s not alone. People across the world are focusing on creating more of a healthy lifestyle. Joggers take to the streets, others go to the gym, and more people than ever are eating a healthier diet. Why? Taking care of your anatomy produces positive rewards.

The same is true for your brand. When’s the last time you examined it? Are you keeping it healthy? Are you feeding it on an ongoing basis? If you work with it, it will work for you—just like your body.

When you want to improve your lifestyle, you go to your doctor’s office. When you want to improve your brand’s “anatomy” and learn how to leverage it going forward, you come to Brand Camp.

We at Aartrijk would like to help you discover the answers to questions like, what should we spend on marketing and communications? Equally important, where to spend it?

The third Brand Camp will be held at the very cool Hotel Boulderado in beautiful Boulder, Colorado on May 7-9, 2012.

At this fun-filled outing we’ll explore “The Anatomy of a Brand.” Think of your firm’s brand (any type, any size) as you would yourself—a unique individual, a human being. For example:

Your brain: the rationale side, where you respond to specific features and benefits that are must-do’s (an insurance policy if you’re a carrier) or are value-added.

Your heart: where powerful emotions reside, where consumers make “soft and fuzzy” decisions on buying or keeping brands that often override the rationale brain.

Your ears: where you as a brand. You need to listen more to what consumers are seeking, where research is key.  And social media’s impact on those ears? “Your ears just got larger,” says Charles Wasilewski, one of our facilitators.

Your eyes: keen vision on where your brand is headed, your brand positioning, where you want to be in three to five years. For smart brands, this process never stops.

Your mouth: where you should speak with a strong, clear, consistent voice.

Your feet, your hands, your nervous system, your sense of survival—all of these things are important as well. We can’t wait to explore these concepts at Brand Camp—we want you to join us and go home with a clear roadmap for your company’s brand and your personal brand.

Some of the sessions include:

• Elements of growing and maintaining a healthy brand.
• The end of insurance business as we know it: An exploration of the future of the agency distribution system in light of changing demographics, diversity and social technologies.
• Key trends and action points for brands.
• Top 20 countdown: A rapid-fire discussion of top branding ideas, misperceptions, brand challenges, or lessons learned.
• Brand refresh: A panel of marketing execs will evaluate what worked and didn’t work in their re-branding efforts.
• And, of course, special evening networking events.

Join us. We’ll see you in Boulder on May 7.

Doesn’t matter if you were successful—the holidays now are here. It’s a great time to unwind, although you may have to work at it. Here are five ideas to do that:

Idea #1: Get to know the family again. Unplug the technology schmutz, turn off the cell phone, close that flap on the iPad—even move away from the TV. The family is the only thing you have that’s permanent in life.

Idea #2: For half a day before January 3, get out the office, get out of the house, and get out of the box you’re in. Take a pad of paper and pen with you. Jot down some ideas about where you’d like to go in life and business. Big ideas, big ideals, big things. You might sketch out some pictures of where you’d like to be with your firm, your job, or yourself. You might come up with a to-do list (tactics) after you think big (strategy).

Idea #3: This holiday season, make an effort to actually talk with people—in person! (I posted about that amazing concept earlier this year.)

Idea #4: Slow down, sit down, relax, and try to read an entire book. I’m into three books right now, so I need to take my own medicine. Tim Russert’s “Wisdom of Our Fathers” will have you appreciate your dad in new ways. In “The Hole in Our Gospel”, I’ve learned that 26,000 children under the age of 5 die every day from hunger and illness. What can the richest country in the world do about it? A lot. And there’s “The Time Trap”, and it appears I’ve got to work to make more time to finish it. Funny, huh? Not really.

Idea #5: If you have time for anything, a simple “thank you” can make a difference to the folks around you this time of year. People who can be under your radar in the day-to-day lives we lead. People such as soldiers, policemen, teachers, helpful neighbors…you get the idea. Wow, they make a huge difference in our country—the most-fortunate place to live on the planet.

We at Aartrijk very much appreciate our relationships with trusted friends and clients.

Thank you for reading the Aartrijk blog this year. Merry Christmas! Here’s to a super 2012 for you and yours.

That’s an excerpt from Dave’s birthday message to fans a few years back, in which he announced the “Sixteen things it took me 50 years to learn”. There are some other real gems in there.

I agree with Mr. Barry on meetings, so why in the world would Aartrijk pile on with yet another meeting—our Brand Camp? Don’t insurance and financial services pros meet enough? Of course, and that’s why we’re aiming to alter and improve the very essence of what we call a “meeting,” or for that matter, a conference, seminar, workshop, speech, etc.

If Aartrijk can contribute to changing the rules of the game, perhaps we can show how the future of face-to-face meetings could be in our industry. Because, let’s admit it, as human beings we need to meet—and we like to meet, especially if it’s fun.

So, we just announced the third Aartrijk Brand Camp at the beautiful Hotel Boulderado in beautiful Boulder, Colorado on May 7-9, 2012. We believe this is the “anti-meeting,” the sort of event that can inspire people. I know it inspires us.

I love our theme, “Anatomy of a Brand.” Talk about fertile soil to explore business challenges and opportunities! We’ll be telling you more about that in the months ahead; for now, think of your firm’s brand (any type, any size) as you would yourself. It, and you, is an individual, a human being—and you need to keep in shape.

Some more things to know about Brand Camp:

• Don’t think of a classroom-style conference or a series of speeches from the podium. That’s not what we’re trying to accomplish.
• Do think on an informal, fun, comfy, coffeehouse setting where you relax, chat, sip a beverage, and even multitask—no one is going to yell at you for peeking at your iPhone.
• Don’t think of a one-way conversation, as so many gatherings are structured. This is not “one to many,” where a smart speaker talks for an hour to a thousand people. It’s many-to-many.
• Do think of an interactive setting where you can learn and share with 100 or 120 other brilliant folks just like you.
• Finally, note that isn’t an annual event—again, we don’t want this all to get stale. We move locations and times of the year, and we never want to hold a Camp unless we feel we have something to talk about. That is our promise to the late Aartrijk staffer Maureen Wall Bentley, who conceived of the idea of Brand Camp in 2007.

If this sounds like an event for you, well, then, we hope to see you in Boulder on May 7. Onward!

Well, forgive me folks. I appear to be stuck in the recent past. Why? Because there are eloquent and wonderful friends in the insurance trade media who keep reminding me of Maureen Wall Bentley, Aartrijk’s executive vice president of brand strategy, who passed away in July at the way-too-early age of 47.  (Here’s Meaux with her husband, Mark Bentley, on their wedding day Oct. 18, 2008.)

Clearly, Meaux had many friends around the business—and some have solid platforms on which they can comment on thoughts and news of the day.

I thought I’d share a few remarks about our Meaux that were printed recently. (Laura’s last two sentences below resonate loudly for me.) Thank you, all, for your thoughtful musings.

Dave Evans, Publisher, Independent Agent:
“She was one of those people who you enjoyed being with—in a meeting, in the hallway or at a convention. She was smart and funny, using her keen Irish charm and wit to accomplish her considerable responsibilities…. Who would have expected that someone coming from Conde Nast in 1991 would turn out to be such an impressive advocate for independent insurance agents…”

Rick Pullen, Editor in Chief, Leader’s Edge:
“All of us in the industry who worked with her—and there are many—will miss her Bronx wit and Irish humor. Maureen’s contributions to insurance journalism are many, and her fingerprints are on nearly every page of this publication.”

Laura Mazzuca Toops, Editor, American Agent & Broker:
“She was a terrific editor and a friendly, funny person who will be sorely missed in the industry…. Maureen’s passing, like the dwindling days of summer, is just another reminder of the fragility and brevity of our time here. So by all means, yes, take a vacation this year—even if it’s just something as simple as a picnic in the park, a ball game with your kids or some quality time playing fetch with your dog. Turn off the cell phone and the laptop, ditch the social media, concentrate on being in the moment, and just breathe. In the end, it’s really all we have.”

Which is why a story called “Got Regional?” in a recent issue of Insurance Journal apparently struck a cord with insurance folks out there. I wrote it with Chris Amrhein, my partner in crime at Insurance is Fun!

The piece points out the nuances of navigating the carrier marketplace. Apparently you agents all forget to laugh every day at this stuff, so it took this article to identify the funny material all around us. Kudos to Insurance Journal for having the courage to publish an entire “Satire Issue”; I’m told there were only two complaints—among tens of thousands of readers—about the material.

Chris and I were on the receiving end of many comments on our article, including:

• Agent: I spent the noon hour today reading the latest issue of the Insurance Journal. I have to admit I haven’t laughed so hard reading an insurance magazine in my life!
• Industry Consultant: Now that right there was funny, I don’t care who y’are!
• Regional Company CEO: Never thought about giving agents a sand wedge; I appreciate the suggestion. I thought your article was hilarious. We do like being a thorn in the national carriers’ side, and we certainly throw better parties, but the real key is we still have people who agents can talk to. We call them underwriters.
• Industry Consultant: I read your article and had two emotions. 1. That was absolutely hilarious! 2. Do you think you need bodyguards? Seriously! I started thinking about all the insurance execs who take themselves way too seriously not getting the humor (and possibly realizing that your satire was maybe reality in a couple of spots).
• Underwriter: Thanks—you made a Monday morning so much more than it really is.
• Agent: There is more truth than fiction in what you wrote. Oh yeah—the “beefy” commissions aren’t so bad either!

Someone else said, “We kid because we love.” And we do love insurance.

Sort of.

I know, what a revelation.

But is it really boring? It doesn’t have to be. Turn on your humor meter if you’re responsible for branding in financial services. If you can’t have some fun in the branding business, maybe you’re in the wrong business. It’s a big sandbox—just look at some humor types:

Belly Laugh Funny. Face it, folks, the really laugh-out-loud funny message, ad, website etc. is pretty rare. Why? It’s hard to pull off. A reference that is intended to make people go “BAH-hah-hah-haaah!” can easily fall flat. And that’s just wrong.

Cute Funny. Think about advertising featuring kids and/or dogs. It’s pretty hard to mess that up. These are the ads—like Etrade—where you find yourself going, “Awwww!” (Actually, I amend that comment. I think the Etrade ads belong in the Belly Laugh Funny category.)

Wise Guy Funny. Geico’s characters: Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they’re smartass funny. And they’re certainly effective. Sarcasm as a tool is alive and well in American advertising.

Smart Funny. Related to smartass funny, but with less of a feeling that you, the viewer, are the real butt of the joke. Allstate’s Mayhem character is smart funny.

Weird Funny. Miss Flo, Progressive’s flack, sure is helpful and perky. But dangit, she just creeps me out for some reason. Sorry, Cleveland. (Admittedly, she’s still a major improvement over advertising a branded SUV that arrives at your very own accident scene.)

Some Fun Funny. You know those privacy notices, disclaimers and fee notices from banks? Snore. But my favorite—ING—does it differently. They start out by saying things such as, “You probably aren’t going to read this notice, but here goes…” What do you find yourself doing? Reading on, of course. And it continues to poke some fun at the whole thing. Why not have some fun with the dreaded gray matter we call the “disclaimer?” Otherwise, you let attorneys alone brand your firms with their ideas of “safe” messaging? Zzzz.

Double Entendre Funny. Two meanings are better than one. And why not mess with people a little? That’s what we do at Insurance is Fun!  To wit:

- Bind me, baby!
- Adjusters do it, then deny it later.
- I love it when you extend my perils!

Laugh at Yourself Funny. This is my favorite—self-deprecating humor. In a prior editorial life I reported on meetings of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. (I know, right? The fun never stopped.) I was somewhere—East Grand Forks?—chatting it up with an actuary who came complete with weird smile, pocket protector and name badge that said, “Actuary.” He was sipping an adult beverage, which in those days flowed like Niagara Falls all day long at the meetings.

I said, “Sorry, what is an actuary, anyway?”

He replied, “An actuary is a person who wanted to grow up to be an accountant but didn’t have the personality for it.”

Now that cat was funny.

Take a fresh look at your marketing materials, people. Take on the lawyers. Let’s fight the fun fight!

Maureen Wall Bentley, Aartrijk’s executive vice president of Brand Strategy, passed away a few days ago at the age of 47.

Words can’t possibly describe how we all are feeling for her friends and family. Our sympathies go to her husband, Mark; her mom, Betty; and the many close relatives of Meaux’s extended family who she loved so much. And it is a loss to the family here at Aartrijk—our employees, our consultants, our clients, our friends.

Speaking of words, that was Maureen’s original true love. When I first met her 20 years ago, she was editor of IA magazine, which to this day is still an Aartrijk client.

She was meant to be an editor, and she was outstanding. Editors take a written word—individually and in groups that create sentences and paragraphs—and work some magic on them. Whatever her pen touched just got better. It wasn’t only a matter of correcting mistakes. Meaux saw what was missing in the words, ultimately shaping them, improving them, providing context and meaning, and enhancing and enriching them.

She also would typically add a nice little twist of humor—Maureen style. That was her Bronx Irish. She had panache, charm, smarts, wit and quick sarcasm all rolled into that wonderful smile and devious laugh we just loved.

You’ve heard that phrase, “It’s not the years in your life; it’s the life in your years.” She gave us so much life by leading by example. She made our company what it is today. She pushed us to do new things, including the reinvention of the entire process of which we approach branding as well as in launching Aartrijk Brand Camp. She gave us confidence to try new things to benefit clients.

Obviously, I’ve been thinking about Maureen so much lately. I truly so appreciated her. I realize now that she had been editing much more than copy on a page. She edited my life. She always was improving on my mistakes, providing context to my life—shaping it, adding meaning and purpose to it, and enhancing and enriching it.

Maybe you too were fortunate that Maureen edited your life.

On behalf of the Aartrijk team, we are forever grateful. Whenever I think of Maureen, I’ll smile.

“Love” is what Southwest aims to shower on you with every brand touch point. The ad copy poking fun at competitors’ nickel-and-diming you on fees. The tone of the website copy. The cute birthday cards. The peanuts. The LUV stock symbol. The little heart-shaped coffee stirrers on the planes.

And the flight attendants—where DO they find these people?

I’ll bet 95% of the flight attendants I’ve seen in 15 years of flying SWA truly are way more fun, caring, interesting, and talented (many sing PA announcements to passengers with impressive voices) than the flight attendants on competing airlines. They also are folks you’d probably have as friends.

Unfortunately, the flight attendants on United, US Airways, etc. seem to have gone in the wrong direction. And I’ve been flying those airlines for even longer—30 years. Blame what you like—job stress, cranky passengers, demanding bosses—but many of those flight attendants aren’t fun. In fact, they can be downright surly. They’re partly the reason why people say flying isn’t fun anymore.

Back in 1995, by a bit of luck, I got to travel with SWA CEO Herb Kelleher when he loaned a brand-new 737 to the “Thank You, America Tour.”  That’s when various search-and-rescue teams from four cities were thanked, in person, for their on-location service following the Oklahoma City bombing. Herb even surprised us with pizza on board as we took off from one city. (He had them hid them in the overhead bins.)

I thought I’d see it all with the Southwest brand ambassadors. But I hadn’t.

Recently I was on my way to an Assurex Global (www.assurexglobal.com) branding workshop meeting in Phoenix. We stopped first in Pittsburgh. The flight attendants were doing their thing: counting the through passengers, cleaning the plane (gotta love the diaper in the seat-back pocket), picking peanuts out of the vacuum cleaner, cracking jokes with each other, needling me about my geeky trade journals.

Then I noticed the co-pilot also collecting trash. Yes, the co-pilot.

I asked if he’d received a promotion with expanded responsibilities. He smiled and said, “I’m told we could get to Phoenix early, but we gotta move.”

Luv it. Whatever it takes for an on-time departure. Talk about OWNING the brand.

You can’t move your brand forward if you don’t have exceptional people “on board.”

What ensued from the mild-mannered, uncannily entertaining Biz at the ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum in San Diego was a series of life stories and pithy ditties—almost Twitter style—that could have been revelations for many folks slugging it out in the corporate world. For me, it seemed like neatly organized common sense for life and leadership in that world. Which is exactly the point: Sometimes we get so caught up in complex and digressive thought that we can forget that if you keep things simple—and Twitter certainly is simple—you can enjoy some elegant progress.

And speaking of progress, Biz said this: “Don’t be afraid to fail. If you want to succeed spectacularly you have to be ready to fail spectacularly.”

He also said people should assume that while there are smart people inside any company, there are smarter people outside the company. To me that just makes good sense; the best firms seem to have a combination of insourced and outsourced talent making decisions and executing on plans.

I’d love to recap more of what Biz said, but I read Insurance Networking News and it’s a darn good synopsis.

My favorite part of the Biz talk, though, was the Q&A. One question from the audience came from someone who says she works regularly to coach creative people and she challenged Biz to a little test. “Can you describe the story of ‘The Three Little Pigs’ in five words or less?” she asked. Biz thought for a couple of moments, answering, “Build a brick house.” Which actually is only four words, and the audience loved it.

Meanwhile, Biz Stone reminds me of another highly creative person: Aaron Moore, who’s also a geek—about design. Separated at birth? You decide.

This time the response was different:
• Pete (to a New York City hotel doorman as he loads my high-maintenance self into a cab in the pouring rain): “Have a good day.”
• Doorman: “They’re all good days. Some are just better than others.”

As I think about it now, I probably nodded and smiled thinly as he shut the taxi door after me. His smile, on the other hand, was authentic and far and wide—exactly, actually, like the hotel character Dick Halloran played awesomely by Scatman Crothers in the 1980 movie The Shining.

And since I was preoccupied as usual with catching a train or plane, it took me a while—maybe several minutes—before I truly heard the gent’s comment.

[Permit me a quick diversion to again recall something from the late and great George Carlin, who had a bit about hating when people said, “Have a nice day.” He ranted: “Maybe I don’t want a nice day. Maybe—just maybe—I’ve had 300 nice days in a row, and I’m ready for a really crappy day. It’s easy to have a crappy day—all you gotta do is get up!”]

“Every day is precious,” “Live in the moment,” “Count your blessings,” or “Have a nice day” are comments people seem to say without true meaning—even though they have huge meaning. They say them to strangers as well as family. I’m sure I was just going through the motions with the doorman.

Moreover, we should take care not to write those phrases to describe brand offerings—e.g. “cutting-edge technology,” “suite of world-class products,” “great customer service” and other worn phrases that have come to mean almost nothing.

Recently, for various reasons, the “good day” comment came to mean more to me. And it got me thinking about the New York doorman. He’s exactly right, and he’s terrific for the hotel brand. I hope he’s still there—and next time I’m in the Big Apple I need to find him and properly thank him for that pearl of wisdom.

Yes, my friends, they’re all good days.