Who wants to volunteer and take on the new insurance account?

Speaking for EMEA country, no fingers will be raised and little to no excitement is to be expected from creatives when it comes to insurance marketing.

Insurance companies are believed to consist of boring bureaucrats, hopelessly lost on the square side and of no opportunity to sharpen your creative profile.

Something went wrong with the mindset of European creatives and needs adjustment and transformation. We are utterly trained to resolve issues no matter what.

A couple years ago, I returned to Frankfurt empty handed from an Allianz insurance pitch in Munich, a not so frequent incident, I must ad in my defense. I was with zentropy then, now MRM Worldwide and in retrospect, I’d say fair enough.

Being a sucker at failure, I researched learnings from US insurance companies and have come across an astonishing psychological finding. With buying insurance, people want to cut a deal with the devil, a bit of horse-trading by which, bad things are prevented from happening with making the purchase.

 

Motivation for purchasing insurance

Preventing bad things from happening with the purchase of insurance.

Getting reimbursed in case of damage.

 

Two topics, that should get the creative juices flow, for there are great stories to tell as this example of an Adweek ad of the day comes to show for State Farm insurance.

An entry on Amsterdam Ad Blog, made me wonder, why no agency with an insurance company in their portfolio has wrapped their minds around an authentic testimonial approach, by which people get to tell their story: How they emerged unscathed from fate in blogger style.

With so many unfortunate, yet curiously strong catastrophes happening around the world, an insurance company will likely take on the role of the guardian angel and savior with current real time events of magnitude as long as the brand stays subtly in the background as an enabler and curator for true stories to get told and talked about in the new world.

Dolly Rogers, an ad agency in Amsterdam published a blog, portraying citizens of Amsterdam, one at a time. This way Dolly Rogers gets talked about and gains popularity (without necessarily having to show off client wins and great work).

 

 

To escape without a scratch

With an authentic testimonial campaign consisting of consolidated and curated empiric reports, including a small demographic, illustrating fact and figures to prove the case, and dialogue unfolding between insurants and family/friends having withnessesed the insurance case and outcome, the insurance company establishes an account of lively case studies in the new world. Exciting true stories told by the insurant. Rolled out in collaboration with help organizations, the effort could raise funds, even for the not insured victim of circumstance.

An excellent and most exciting example to help you get your hands around this observation, can be found here and here.

The insurant themselves manage their blog entries and responds to comments with the help of social media practitioners assigned by the agency.

The insurance company gets into the conversation as an increasingly appealing, popular figure.

Trust in the insurance company is gained or returned organically and is strengthened by supporting figures and fact.

 

New international Allianz insurance campaign

The new campaign is centered around the viewpoint of the customer on behalf of the Allianz performance and its 10.000 representatives, a press statement declares on their corporate website.

A close call to my observations, allas a far cry… Grey, their agency has chosen to deliver good old in your face advertising, rather than relying on authenticity, transparency and access as key attributes for good social engagement to bring the magic back.

With their new campaign, Allianz fails to deliver on my observations and misses out on the drama unfolding in the new world. No reasons to believe any of this, are being given.

Empiric reports can be viewed as videos here and are perceived as what they are: adfilms.Testimonials are no longer being delivered as empty promises, dear Christian Deuringer (in charge of marketing). Experience must be shared to be relevant and trustworthy. Grey has been dragging their feet and delivered advertising messages for the old world while we are living in the new world with exciting opportunities for participation marketing and amazing things to talk about.

Have a look here, at how 3 BBH interns raised $24,000 to help 89 year old barber after his livelihood was devastated by recent unrests in London. You’ll get the idea.

 

 

• In 1964 the band that changed everything came to America. —Now they’re on iTunes.
• The Beatles—credentials
• Why We Care About Apple And The Beatles—Devin Codewey, CrunchGear

 

 

 

 

You can’t hurry love or can you?

I don’t have an answer, what I do have is a proposition for Kevin Roberts and his lovemarks company on how to win over Proctor & Gamble and turn their products into lovemarks. How? By proving the lovemarks theory with one Proctor & Gamble product, measured results and promoting the case study as tipping point for other P&G products to follow suit.

Context awaiting content

Germany has serious problems with differenciating what causes greater safety issues, publicness or privacy. Should a law be passed to restrict Google street view. What about Facebook? Things will heat up with the next German census taking place on May 9, 2011. I can’t thing of a greater opportunity to play with fun content in a more serious context. The German census will show how much love the German people have for their ‚Volkszahnbürste‛, the P&G Oral B powertoothbrush [see support illustrations above].

• Cast your vote for your power toothbrush to become a lovemarks candidate
                   
• Lovemarks—Facebook
• KR Connect—Kevin Robert blog
• Images source—Old Bug
• Procter & Gamble—Germany

A P&G product has captured the German market with great potential of being a lovemark™ long after the Volkwagen beetle made way for things to become embraced by an entire nation as a godsent. It’s Oral B, the German people’s powertoothbrush. Locals refer to it as:

 

‚Volkszahnbürste‛

 

Case closed. Nothing to add. It’ that simple. It is now on Kevin Roberts to catch the idea, pick up on it and do what needs be done to bring new relevance to the lovemark™ brand. I am in touch with Angelique Moren for this connection to take place and throw you lucky people a kiss.

 

 

2 world class best practices on how to build your brand

How digital footprints make for a becoming real world, global reputation.

Marketers, business founders take note – Ad agencies beware. Here goes.

Some four years ago, I couldn’t keep my browser from pointing at the digital footprints of two human beings, a young photographer from Georgia, United States and a tailor from London, United Kingdom. All eyes on these two for understanding modern day branding. Both have become the best business practices of choice and my personal heroes of modern day marketing ever since. I have not gotten tired of referring to one or both in most any given week since 2006!

 

 

The Darling Life

Laura Taylor established a name for herself as young photographer by simply documenting her bucolic life on MySpace. She grew a following of 25405 friends with exemplifying a rural lifestyle and healthy being the rest of us had a longing for. This is with a free of charge MySpace page. Now ask your agency how much money you would have to spent on a brand site to gain similar attention! All that Laura had to do, is post a picture once in a while. The least effort as a bona fide business rule! Rather than posting pictures she took, Laura posted pictures that were taken of herself. As the healthy being she is, we all became returning visitors to go look for new pictures of Laura Taylor. I remember being much impressed with each picture received at least 20-70 comments. I thought, so that’s how you make friends and gain influence. To gain momentum all she had to do was tochange her profile picture. The way Laura Taylor treated herself on Darling Life has remained a world best practice also on how to deal with security and privacy issues. She managed to never ever compromise her privacy, nor did I ever notice any indecent attempts by any member of the community. Laura Taylor would allow her community insights into her approximate whereabouts, she would take them all along with her on travels to Egypt where she was taken to by an apprenticeship as a member of an archeology assignment. Eventually more photographs appeared actually shot by Laura Taylor and I noticed how I finally arrived at the conviction to have discovered a wold class photographer in Laura Taylor. Laura is also a natural born genius at maintaining her darling life brand attributes. Even Interpubic’s Future Brand could learn a thing or two from the Darling Life. The shift to acoustic music and the influence of the hipster culture, which has become mainstream through movies such as Elizabeth Town or Juno also played a vital role in establishing the brand. I every so often kept Laura’s MySpace open in a browser window and made use of her taste in music for a pleasant afternoon’s radio show—speaking about added value in immediate, practical terms.

 

• Commitment: Growing a committed community by allowing participation in the diary of the brand’s evolution
• Reason to believe: Witness & participate in the evolution of brand truths and attributes over an extended period of time (long tail)
• Efficiency & Continuity: It is how you do it with the least effort required
• Uncompromised Privacy: Get naked without ever letting your pants down
• Single mindedness: Strict business focus with a variety of photographs (work samples) distributed with few words. Do good and let the community do the talking
• Lovemark: A good understanding of how relationships seem to require respect in equal terms

 

 

Today photos from Laura Taylor have been replaced with photos by Laura Taylor almost entirely. First, the delightful music player disappeared from the MySpace page, then her MySpace page disappeared altogether. Traffic had been diverted to the well done Photographs of Laura Taylor credentials site besides her copyprotected photostream on Flickr.

 

• Photographs of Laura Taylor
• Isn’t life dreamy? Laura Taylor’s blog on Tumblr
• Laura Taylor’s photostream on Flickr
• Ghost Mag’s Q&A With the Darling Life’s Laura Taylor

 

 

• Death Cab Darling—MySpace
• Laura Taylor—tumblr
• The Darling Life—Flickr
• Mullen—Blog

 

On integrated campaigning

Both Darling Life & English Cut seem to have been at the right place at the right time—Darling Life with a MySpace page and English Cut with a blog rather than a website. I admire both for their ease of being not just ease of digital being—for demonstrated business focus and good business sense—and for getting naked without ever being caught with their pants down. It is this holistic approach to marketing thereby inventing a customer relationship program, an appointment generating engine [English Cut] with good use of common sense paired with practical intelligence rather than relying on specialist’s often awkward lingo knowledge. Laura Taylor and

Tom Mahon must have arrived at the conclusion that we all have but one life to live. It to be perhaps unwise to break it down into a professional life on one side and a personal life at its opposite side. Common sense and practical intelligence we all wish to arrive at.

When to run
Shy away from offers of ad agencies, that pull out complex case studies, abstract graphics, and on how the whole is more than its single parts, which then would together work wonders, yet trust your instincts. Run out the backdoor screaming, should your CRM agency not have a proven track record of at least 3 years in social media marketing. Leave now. Run.

 

Here’s a man that wanted to explain what he did, set up a blog with a friend of his (yes, someone in marketing), and begun blogging that lead to an audience, that lead to an increase in business, that lead to a whole new arena for a humble tailor in England. -Jeremy Pepper October 25, 2005 11:45 AM

 

English Cut

Tom Mahon, a bespoke Savile Row tailor got lucky with much of the same approach to branding, only this time on the other side of the atlantic, in the urban setting of London. Unlike Miss Taylor, Mr. Mahon could not likely attract visitors by thinking wishfully of an audience wishing to see him get naked as a silly rational offers for what may have triggered Laura Taylor’s early success with Darling Life, Besides Yves Saint Laurent had occupied that space long ago.

Only recently I learned that Hugh McLeod had as say in this, likely persuading Tom Mahon to make use of a blog rather than investing in a static website as the rest of the world would likely follow their ad agency’s advice. Tom Mahon turned his blog into an appointment generating engine at its core.

The trust a brand can build over time with long tail marketing is mind boggling in my experience. Calculating the least effort, making use of readily available toys and apps may well lead to finally bringing to completion a good enough percentage of your business objectives.

 

• Article in Newsweek featuring Thomas Mahon and Lucy Adams.
• Thomas Mahon Fights It Out in England (Nov. 2006)
Kami Huyse has published some slides on techniques to measure the effectiveness of social media. Here’s what I found on English Cut:

Obejctive

• To reach a dvierse group of men, about 10,000 in the World, taht have the money and interest in a Savile Row bespoke custom suit
• To do this on a local budget

Approach

• Start a blog to discuss the value of a custom suit and its many benefits
• To make Thomas Mahon a thought leader on the subject of custom suits
• Trips to Manhattan to garner new customers

Results

• Thomas Mahon sold two suits in Manhattan in 2004
• Ten weeks after launching the blog and returing to Manhattan he sold 20 suits and eight sport coats
• This was fueled later by a media tour arranged by PR pro David Parmet
• Today, Thomas has as many sales he can handle and more

Case study from Naked Conversations by She Israel and Robert Scrible
Find the slide here: Tools and Techniques to Measure the Effectiveness of Social Media

 

• Visit English Cut
• The blogging tailor: An interview with Tom Mahon of English Cut

 

 

Thomas Mahon wraps it up brilliantly for all you marketers and entrepreneurs:

The main difference I think—between a blog and a website—it took me a little time to discern it. Apart from the obvious we know how they look and how they work. But basically a website is an image and that’s open to the same problems that we all want a good image. So often we tell a half truth and like to dress it up a little bit. But a blog to be successful has to be a—reflection, a true reflection. And if you look at the dictionary, there are big differences between image and reflection. And of course you gotta speak the truth in reflections. There is nothing being hidden and people see that about you and it shows.