We invite you to follow Brand Camp updates on LinkedIn, Aartrijk’s Facebook page, Twitter (@Aartrijk) using hashtag #ABC2010, and Aartrijk’s blog.

Monday October 25, 2010

First up are the “Do It Now” sessions at 3:30 pm Central Daylight Time (CDT). Bring your problems, dreams, aspirations (large or small). Brand Campers, Counselors, and outside speakers will help you, on the spot. It’s a chance to create or fix key items for your brand. Then comes the welcome reception.

Tuesday, October 26

The first full day of Brand Camp (Tuesday, Oct. 26) kicks off with a cold-eyed look at the financial Value of Brand by Hales & Co., focusing on research on independent insurance agencies. Then the interactive part of Brand Camp kicks off in earnest (to continue for the rest of camp).

Then we launch full force into the tools, tactics, and topics relevant right now for insurance branding with a panel discussion Your Brand Transformed, featuring Aartrijk’s team of Brand Camp Counselors. We’ll poke and prod about what is happening in the marketplace of brands, using experience and observations from inside and outside the insurance industry.

Next up is Brand Audit: The Big ‘A-Ha Moment.’ This session presents what a brand audit entails and why it’s a plus for moving a brand forward. Counselors Aaron Moore and Andrea Campbell describe what a brand audit entails and how it helps move a brand forward. Counselors Aaron Moore and Andrea Campbell focus on the image assessment portion of the brand audit, show a case study and take questions.

The big event at Brand Camp is The Integrated Marketing Challenge. It’s experiential learning, especially for Brand Campers who are dealing with insurance branding issues everyday. Attendee teams compete à la The Apprentice in this hands-on exercise. The Integrated Marketing Challenge engages Campers as teams to develop a strategy to resolve a specific marketing problem or opportunity.

On Monday afternoon, Campers switch gears to look ahead for a panel discussion called What’s Next? This focuses on mobile applications, geolocation, video blogging and other new and emerging trends.

Let’s Get This Straight: Internal Brand Alignment looks at how brands work inside an organization. How do you achieve internal brand alignment with leaders, employees and other stakeholders (including the cynics)?

Brand Camp requires fun, good food and enjoyment. That tradition begun in 2009 continues with a day-ending Networking Event: Do the (Max’s Wine) Dive.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Day 2 of Brand Camp kicks off with a special session featuring agent branding. Social Networking: Now What? covers: Bringing in new business, B2B vs. B2C, strategies to make it work, blogging vis a vis Web site vis a vis Facebook/LinkedIn. Panelists are noted bloggers Chris Jordan, Atlanta Insurance Live, and Ryan Hanley, Albany Insurance Professional.

Brand Camp teams make their Interactive Marketing Challenge Presentations. While the winning team takes home a special prize, everyone takes home more knowledge and experience to make their brands more productive.

(After Brand, by invitation only, a luncheon event is open to Assurex Global attendees.)

Our CEO, Peter van Aartrijk, regularly brings his gigantic labs, Molly and Betty, to the HQ office, where they welcome visitors with a lot of licking and pleas for petting, and then they settle in at Peter’s feet. Guinness, one of my two prison cats (they were part of a Pets for Prisoners program, which explains a lot), is almost always on the sunny spot of my office floor, while the other one, Harp, forces me to mute calls because of her caterwauling.

And while all that may sound like a distraction from the work we do for our clients, it actually is quite the opposite: Our animals calm us and amuse us, which enables us to focus and enjoy our work. And that’s not just us: In a nationwide survey by the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, 73% of responding companies found having pets in the office created a more productive work environment among—and  27% had a decreased absenteeism rate.

But if you don’t have your furry favorite by your side at work, we’re happy to share ours. Just visit the Aartrijk Zoo.

We had pre-surveyed attendees at Aartrijk Brand Camp. These were agents, brokers, carriers, association executives, media reps, and business partners such as technology firms.

In sum, you have genuine concerns and questions around the impact and application of social media. You are being cautious about stepping into fray.

Here are some top issues you are having with all the excitement behind Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, etc.:

Social media appears to be a time vampire. How do you manage the time you and your people spend with it?

How do you show a return on the effort? One survey respondent said: “While time spent on informing/communicating with fans helps build relationships, does that turn into referrals?” And sales?

We don’t know where or how to start with social media. We need a plan and a budget and somebody in charge—who is that going to be?

The internal battles are brutal. How do we get our management on board? And our legal beagles are putting the kybosh on us branding folks—the IT department isn’t helpful either. One of you said, “The current rule is to run all printed copy past the marketing and legal departments. Social [media] requires a more relaxed, conversational tone to be authentic and trustworthy…[But] it is viewed as more of a risk than an opportunity.”

We’re not sure when we should start! One of you said: “Maybe it’s better not to put a toe in the water until this new frontier matures.”

Who in insurance has gone before us? What are the best practices around building brand awareness with social media? “We need success stories.”

Who is this for? Is social media best for business-to-business? Business-to-consumer? Both? Neither?

Finally, do insurance and financial services play a role at all in social media? Do consumers care about us? We’re not worthy! We’re just not cool enough!

Ah, yes, great questions. Stay tuned for some solutions offered up by Brand Camp attendees.

– Peter van Aartrijk

Follow Aartrijk on Twitter: @Aartrijk. Follow Brand Camp conversation on Twitter using hashtag #ABC09.

Earlier this week I spent some time at Chicago’s Hotel Sax—site of Aartrijk Brand Camp Sept. 28-30, 2009. If you like those Austin Powers movies, you’ll love this place. Cool, smart feel about the place, a bit of old and new mixed. The décor is almost sinfully fun and funky. Great staff. Wine shop on one side; bowling alley on the other; House of Blues 10 yards away. And what’s not to love about Chicago, people?

Also met with blogger extraordinaire Liz Strauss, one of our guest speakers at Brand Camp. (She has 28,000 followers on Twitter.) I can’t wait for our attendees to hear her ideas and interact with our other speakers and attendees—you are sure to come away with an action plan for your marketing and branding!

- Peter van Aartrijk