And Then They Told Two Friends…

“And they told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on….”

From where do I know that phrase? Wait for it… Think late ’70s/early ’80s television ad campaign. You know the one, starring Heather Locklear and other models…? If you’re not there yet, don’t worry: we’ll circle back later.

What does this have to do with insurance? Well, very little so far. But I’m not here to talk about insurance: I’m writing to share how that theme helped Aviva touch communities across Canada.

The commercial 30 years ago spoke of the power of word of mouth. What it foretold, and what I am writing about here, is the power of social media. Last year, we wrote in Canadian Underwriter about using social media to engage our customers and help our broker partners do the same. This year, we’re looking at the power of social media from a different angle: getting the public to be our best brand advocates. We did this through our Aviva Community Fund (ACF) competition.

THE AVIVA COMMUNITY FUND

Let’s set the table. Referred to by at least one journalist as ‘Community Idol,’ the Aviva Community Fund competition challenged Canadians to come up with ideas to improve their communities. Be they programs to give at-risk youth better opportunities, the construction of new playgrounds and anything in between, the programs were submitted to AvivaCommunityFund.org.

After submitting their projects, the idea generators needed to get Canadians to vote for their concept. The top 20 vote-getters from each of three rounds moved on to the semi-finals. The semi-finalists were again asked to generate votes for their ideas; the highest 25 vote-getters moved on to the finals, where a panel of judges evaluated the feasibility and sustainability of the projects. In the end, eight winners shared the competition prize of $500,000.

WHY DID AN INSURANCE COMPANY CREATE SUCH A CAMPAIGN?

It came down to two core reasons: 1) investment in our communities is in line with our business model of supporting Canadians and their insurance brokers, and 2) the competition was a way to expand Aviva brand awareness.

We know Canadians are a highly engaged, Web-using population. In fact, Canada ranks as a global leader in online video viewing, according to 2009 statistics compiled by comScore. Knowing this, and given the insurance industry’s budget challenges of the previous 18 months, we knew we had to take a different approach. As in traditional news media, in order for the public to pay attention to something or pass it along to their own personal networks, a concept needs to have a few basic components: it needs to be interesting, exciting and relatively easy upon which to act.

ENTER SOCIAL MEDIA

One large question stood in front of us: would Canadians have the means to turn their good ideas into concepts and generate votes? This is where social media came in.

The campaign started with some traditional media components such as print ads and targeted television sponsorships, public relations outreach and direct mailings to schools, community groups and charities. From there, we turned to social media using Facebook and Twitter, online banner advertising and building outreach specifically to bloggers and online reporters.

AvivaCommunityFund.org was established not just as a site to explain how the competition worked, but also as a simple way for people to display their ideas. They could use the site to explain their ideas in plain text, post pictures and video, and respond to questions from voters and interested parties who posted in the comments section.

Idea generators received a couple of tips on how to ask for votes. Step 1: start with the simplest of concepts. Email everyone they knew — those associated with the project, friends, colleagues, family and anyone else they could think of who might vote for their great idea — and ask them to vote everyday. Step 2: Generate a following and keep them updated using social networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook. Thus, with a few key strokes, and perhaps by using funny photos and updates of a weekend just past, idea generators could keep their followers engaged.

TELLING TWO FRIENDS, AND SO ON…

In short, our job was to publicize the program, their job was to publicize the ideas and ultimately we both won.

We used Twitter and Facebook too, developing pages specifically for the ACF, providing updates on the number of ideas, votes, media articles, etc. This kept us top of mind with anyone who registered on the site.

The response was incredible. Our pre-promotion was designed to get the ball rolling; we hoped to have 20 or so ideas submitted prior to launch. Waking up one day to find that we were approaching the 200 submission mark was a great feeling. The competition was up and running very well, but it didn’t come without its issues.

As we were asking people to vote, we soon trapped system-generated votes and those entering fake email addresses to cast more votes. We chose a progressive response defence, adding filters and protocols to ensure a level playing field.

From there, the ball just kept rolling. Three weeks after launch, we had more than 1,300 ideas submitted, 130,000 registered and 17,000 comments. The ACF was gaining significant momentum. One astounding number is that 75% of all traffic to the ACF site came as the result of sharing. Organization Web sites were featuring our logo, encouraging all of their visitors to vote.

The most telling statistic came from Twitter. For a two-month period, 90% of all tweets about Aviva across the planet were about the Aviva Community Fund. This is a staggering figure: Aviva Canada accounts for only about 5% of the company’s sales and employee base worldwide.

TRADITIONAL MEDIA AND THE RESULTS

It all comes back full circle when we add traditional media into the mix. Since many of the submitted ideas were community-based, the nets they each cast grew wide enough to catch the attention of the local media. These local media, in turn, started promoting their local ideas, asking the general population (who may not otherwise have known about the local idea) to vote as well.

The media response was spectacular. The Aviva Community Fund and the submitted ideas were mentioned in more than 500 media stories, reaching an audience of more than 65 million.

After a grand total of more than 2,100 ideas submitted and more than 2-million votes cast, we were pleased to announce the eight winners of the Aviva Community Fund this past January. The tough part is that many great ideas and organizations didn’t get funding, but the feedback was still tremendous. We were told the ACF gave some of the organizations valuable experience in self-promotion. It even connected a few with other alternative sources of support. Take, for example, the Thirsty Church project in Nova Scotia. Once the local paper publicized they were out of the running for ACF funding (their idea was to add plumbing to the old church-turned-community centre), a local contractor stepped up to do the work for free.

So in the end, our success was based on the ability of those we engaged to spread the word about the Aviva Community Fund and, ultimately, Aviva. It worked out so well that the second Aviva Community Fund is scheduled to start this September. Oh, and did I mention? We doubled the commitment to $1 million, and we see a huge opportunity for brokers to participate, too.

In case you’re still scratching your head wondering where the opening quote came from, it’s an ad for Faberge Organics Shampoo. It seems kind of ironic for a guy who ‘barely’ needs shampoo to use it as a metaphor for describing the power of social media. If you are unfamiliar with the campaign, type “and they told two friends” into a search on YouTube and you’ll be back in the ’70s in no time.

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This year, we’re looking at the power of social media from a different angle: getting the public to be our best brand advocates.