Three Lessons Point to What Social Is (and Isn’t)
May 15, 2012 by Rick Morgan · Leave a Comment
Thousands of main street insurance agents have now joined the early adopters in our industry’s foray into social networking. Social networking is working for some, but not so much for others. Users continue to better understand the significance and impact social networking is having on the way insurance firms connect and interact with customers and prospects. They also are taking advantages of the new opportunities an effective social networking initiative can offer.
The following three key concepts are foundational lessons that have emerged in the past couple years – that must be recognized and incorporated into any successful social networking initiative:
1. It’s not about the technology. Success with social networking isn’t just about the latest technology. Technology is transitory. It is the means to an end: Connecting with people. Social networking represents a permanent cultural transformation and a market disruption.
Many of the old ways of doing business are no longer effective. For example, traditional Yellow Page advertising is no longer effective in reaching most consumers. Read more
Playing to the Stereotype: Four Insurance Branding Lessons from the New Jersey Governor
April 10, 2012 by Charles Wasilewski · 5 Comments
Take These Four Insurance Branding Lessons Home With You
From modest beginnings in New Jersey, a larger-than-life politician has emerged onto the national stage: Governor Chris Christie. And he’s brought along branding experiences that apply to insurance.
Christie was criticized by opponents as an underqualified political appointee and a legal lightweight when he was nominated by President George W. Bush to the post of U.S. Attorney for the State of New Jersey. During Christie’s tenure from 2002 through 2008, the U.S. Attorney’s office won convictions or pleas of guilty from 130 public officials (state, county and local), both Democratic and Republican — without losing a single case.
The Myth of 24/7
January 24, 2012 by Rick Morgan · 2 Comments
When I speak with insurance agents and brokers, I hear a common belief that in today’s world, 24/7 availability is required to be competitive. And who can blame them? In our instant gratification society there is an expectation that consumers want full access to all information whenever they want it.
But what exactly does “24/7” mean and is it really necessary?
If you believe the argument that auto insurance is a commodity, then the 24/7 expectation is justified. Yet, what your customers are buying from you, the agent, is more than a quote or a policy—they also are getting a personalized service built on a trusted relationship. Perhaps geckos don’t sleep but living, breathing insurance agents need their rest. Read more
Tebow This: Does Your Brand’s Muscle Memory Need Changing?
January 10, 2012 by Charles Wasilewski · 2 Comments
Tim Tebow, Denver Broncos starting quarterback, Heisman Trophy winner -- and rebranding lesson
Tim Tebow was the biggest brand in college football just three years ago. During a career at the University of Florida from 2006-9, he set records in career passing efficiency and total rushing touchdowns in the Southeastern Conference (considered by many football fans to be the most competitive conference in the country).
Tebow’s teams sported a 48-7 record during his four-year career and won two national championships. He won the Heisman Trophy, emblematic of college football’s best player, in 2007, when he became the first college football player to both rush and pass for 20 or more touchdowns in a single season.
Now, Tebow is among the biggest brands in professional football, in just his second National Football League season. His number 15 Denver Broncos jersey is the largest-selling among all NFL players. Last weekend, he threw a game-winning touchdown pass in the first play of overtime to capture Denver’s first playoff victory in six years — spawning a record 9,420 tweets per second, according to Twitter.
But the two Tim Tebows are totally different brands, even though both have been successful.
So, what would one of the most-successful college quarterbacks of all time even need or want to change? Read more
It’s Christmas Eve. Let’s Go to Grandmother’s House (on Facebook)!
December 20, 2011 by Charles Wasilewski · 1 Comment
“Over the river and through the woods,
To Grandmother’s house we go;
The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh,
Through (the) white and drifted snow!”
– traditional children’s song
Those who don’t get to Grandmother’s house by horse and sleigh (or airplane, bus, car, or train) are now traveling there via Facebook. They’re going to all kinds of places on the social networking site.
Facebook.com was the most-visited web site on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 2009, and on New Year’s Day 2010, according to data reported by Experian Hitwise. “Facebook” was also Read more
Gift Card In the Big Store
October 11, 2011 by Charles Wasilewski · Leave a Comment
“It’s like a gift card in a big store.”
Recently a client made that statement at the conclusion of a discussion about a new branding initiative for his insurance firm. The client was delighted about having a range of choices in the creative materials we had developed. But he also was a bit torn and forlorn about having to only choose one approach from more than one choice.
Ah, there’s the rub, as Shakespeare once said.
With a marketing budget, or any budget for that matter, insurance brands need to make choices. Read more
Social Networking – Its Impact on Your Brand
June 21, 2011 by Rick Morgan · Leave a Comment
While it is common for people to think of their logo as their brand – it is so much more than that. Brand is everything and everything is brand. Your brand is the impression or feeling someone has about your firm and is formed and evolves from every customer touch point or interaction with your company. Brand is your storefront, your reception area, your employees, and your voicemail system. Brand includes all of your communication tools. In the digital age your brand is the user interface, content, and functionality of your website. Brand is also your Linkedin profile, your Twitter activity, and your Facebook page.
Today more than ever brand is being defined by consumers and what they think is more important or has more influence than your brand messaging. Interestingly enough, even if you are not engaged in social networking it is having an impact on your brand. In fact, not engaging in social networking may be doing great harm to your brand. Read more
True Name Grit
May 31, 2011 by Charles Wasilewski · Leave a Comment
With the summer kickoff of movie season this past Memorial Day weekend, I thought back to a recent movie I enjoyed. In the 2011 remake of Western film True Grit, 14-year-old heroine Mattie Ross hires rough-hewn U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn to hunt down and bring to justice Tom Chaney, her father’s killer. Cogburn is an “aging, one-eyed, overweight, trigger-happy, hard-drinking man.” But to Ross, he’s the right man to ride out onto dangerous ground and find the elusive Chaney, who has a head start fleeing across the river from Arkansas into Indian Territory (now the state of Oklahoma).
Rooster has “grit” (Ross’s word), even if he’s time-beaten, weather-worn and (in actor Jeff Bridges’s take) has a muffled, mouth-chewing way of speech.
The girl heroine insists on coming along, so Rooster and Ross ride out on the range, encountering dead bodies, outlaws, rattlesnakes and other hazards. [Plot spoiler: Rooster tracks and kills his quarry (with help from a Matt Damon-acted Texas Ranger who has his own reasons for hunting down the villianous Tom Chaney). Mattie Ross gets her justice.]
I’m not a movie buff nor a Western fan, but this well-done movie led me to reflect on naming and insurance brand tagline projects we’ve been working on here at Aartrijk: Read more
A Rose By Any Other Name
April 19, 2011 by Maureen Wall Bentley · Leave a Comment
It sounded like a joke: “You know that CARFAX won’t fax you a report any more?”
But it wasn’t a joke. Though CARFAX indeed has “fax” in its name, the company today distributes its used-vehicle reports only through online access. But that gap between identity and reality doesn’t seem to have hurt the company, which, with more than 8 billion records in its database, is one of the top Web sites for vehicle research.
But that disparity got me thinking about other brand identities that no longer deliver on their name, logo or tagline, and whether or not it matters. Read more
Call for Action
March 15, 2011 by Charles Wasilewski · 1 Comment
“Call for action! GReenwood 7-5-3-1-2!”
I still remember the radio ad jingle. Growing up in central New Jersey and raised on AM radio, I repeatedly heard this commercial for a Philadelphia newspaper, which featured a consumer hotline dubbed “Call For Action!” (Using a word like “GReenwood” in the phone number followed by the numbers was a trick for making telephone numbers memorable.)
In those days of the 1960s and 1970s, lemon laws were not yet on the books, malls were just being invented, and the “vigilante consumer” (more on that term later) was a slumbering giant. So the local newspaper had a consumer action helpline where people could call if they had a problem with a consumer product or service. The Star-Ledger, a newspaper in New Jersey, recently reintroduced a similar column. Read more