Pricing, products and processes are the protection industry's priorities. Louise Colley begs to differ and gives a call to arms to the emotional side of marketing.
It is this type of communication which offers the industry a simple way of getting protection back into everyday life and interest.
But is there evidence for this view? Well, read the widow’s tale in the box below.
This blog was unprompted and unsolicited, but it gave genuine endorsement of the benefit of having life insurance.
Aviva recently spoke to the IFA who she had written so highly of and he did not even know of its existence. Obviously, this creates a great marketing opportunity for him and, rightly, he was proud of her kind words.
So, the power of Anna’s blog is greater than any sales aid if seen by those audiences where the message truly will hit home the importance of life insurance.
The internet provides such access. Imagine sharing this with the online communities such as Mumsnet and Netmums millions of mums coming together with a common purpose and who all need to understand the financial risks they face if there is no family protection in place.
If we can get more advocates to promote the virtues of life insurance, then this will be powerful and effective.
We all know that those who have sadly lost loved ones but had life insurance in place are the industries biggest advocates.
Hearing these stories will help cut through those traditional barriers as to why consumers don’t buy the products.
Emotional engagement
Aviva’s research, which drove much of the TV advert direction, focused on the need to emotionally engage with consumers, to pull them out of their state of inertia and overcome those barriers we all know so well.
The simple fact is that emotion creates motion, but emotional engagement will create action and our industry needs this.
Online communities will allow us to convey emotion with the use of audio visual.
Much of the above insight was shared when it was recently presented at the Protection Review on the subject of ‘advertising, social media and communications’.
As an introduction to the talk, a spot of creative license as a marketer changed the title to ‘The Fluffy Stuff’.
Over the past 20 years, this industry has not focused on the key element of the marketing mix that is promotion.
Instead, focus has been given to price, product (to some extent), process and place. So promotion should no longer be the poor relative.
We simply cannot afford to be so naïve and ignorant in our marketing activity and dismiss social media.
The industry has been a laggard in other forms of promotional activity, so let us embrace the emergence of this route to consumers to our advantage.
Louise Colley is head of protection marketing at Aviva Life
