Moving Stories

As both insurance companies and brokers battle for market share in an increasingly competitive industry, the ability to connect emotionally with customers is vitally important.

We are all familiar with brands. We use them to make buying decisions on a daily basis. We all have an opinion about them, too.

Is a BMW better than a Ford? Is Pepsi better than Coke?

What’s clear is that it’s not just the logo or the colour of the packaging that matters.

It’s the emotion and the experience of the brand that goes with it.

More companies are now seeing the value of establishing an emotional link between their customers and their brands. Companies that have been successful at creating that connection with their customers and stakeholders have learned that they not only benefit from stronger results, but they are able to command a premium in their chosen markets.

Of course that emotional link may be easier to establish when the brand is a vehicle or a soft drink — products the general public can easily recognize and to which they can relate. Insurance, for the most part, tends to take place behind the scenes.

Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) recognizes this. In a message published on its pub- lic Web site, IBC says: “The insurance industry works behind the scenes to help home, car and business owners pursue their ambitions and build their dreams. While we carry on with our daily activities, insurance professionals measure risk, settle claims, provide reinsurance and pay taxes. We may not think about insurance very often, but it is there, providing the oxygen that sustains our economy, making investments possible and assisting us when we need help.”

The fact is, what we do is hard to see. No doubt, this creates a disconnect between the customer and the brand. And yet what we do is emotional. We keep customers moving when they need it most. There is a need for that emotional connection to be emphasized.

We know what we do can bring significant value to the public. As an industry, we help people replace what is lost and get back to their lives. We offer expertise, advice and security, all of which can lead to strong emotions for customers. Research has shown an emotive brand is something consumers are willing to pay for.

The New York Times recently reported that although “Mcdonald’s and Burger King engaged in a dollar menu death-spiral price war, Starbucks has customers paying nearly $5 for a cup of coffee.”

Starbucks has managed to take the customer’s mind off price by focusing on value, time and delivery. They have also emotionally connected with customers by creating the perception that every time someone visits a Starbucks they are entering a refuge where they can leave the stresses of the world behind.

In an article, William J. McEwen, the global practice leader of brand management at the Gallup Organization, writes: “Whether a company is marketing hamburgers or microprocessors, there’s an impressive financial return that results from emotionally engaging consumers — and there’s a substantial cost that results from disengaging them.”

For a brand to be meaningful to the public, it must act on its promises. Brands are personalities; if they portray one thing in their advertisements but then act another way, customers will spot it instantly. It’s a sure way to destroy that emotional connection or prevent it from forming in the first place. Famous and effective brands use all their resources to reinforce the personality of that brand.

The key is how to reach and connect with those customers and establish that emotional link. The average person is inundated with thousands of messages a day, and so the main challenge for brands is to be able to cut through all of that background noise.

This motivation lies at the heart of the next stage in the evolution of RSA’s brand proposition of ‘Keeping You Moving.’ The creative vehicle we have chosen to express that proposition is called Moving Stories. It’s our way of bringing to life the personality and emotion of what we do, by telling dramatic, real-life stories of our commitment to keep people moving when they need it most. The stories show our collective experiences with individuals, companies and brokers.

Whether it’s the claims adjuster who knocked on doors in the middle of the night to support the customers whose homes were hit by the recent series of tornadoes in Ontario, or the employee who used her own money to get a customer’s vehicle unhooked from a tow truck, we are sharing the stories that capture the emotion behind what we do as a company. From the epic to the everyday, these stories highlight the company’s ability, but also clearly demonstrate the restorative power of insurance.

RSA’s brand strategy has been unique in that we have launched from the inside out. Our goal was to engage employees first, to make our brand come alive from within. Our employees are our brand and it was key that our customers and brokers saw that.

We have adopted the same approach with Moving Stories, by capturing and sharing these stories internally first — to excite and motivate our employees, and have them on board — before going external.

We are now at a stage where we want to share these stories externally, with an unveiling planned for this month. We have also set up a Moving Stories Web site where these stories can be viewed at www.rsabroker.ca.