As the old joke goes, “Ever since the experiment, Ivan Pavlov can’t hear a doorbell ring without feeling an urge to feed his dogs”. Similarly, there is a fascinating Pavlovian response generated among marketing professionals. Upon the mere implication of the adage that ‘there’s no such thing as bad publicity’, you can see the temptation to roll their eyes become almost overpowering.
And with good reason. The recent furore over the ‘European Super League that never was’ has lent its voice to the chorus borne from such branding disasters as New Coke or Apple’s insistence that its customers must surely share their passion for U2’s ‘Songs of Innocence’. There may be no such thing as a stupid question, but there certainly is such a thing as an ill-conceived idea.
The insurance industry is no stranger to such branding mishaps, blame for which, as with other industries, all too often falls on the shoulders of marketers and advertisers, while ignoring the plethora of senior leaders that likely requested these changes and certainly signed off on them. For every well-thought-out brand evolution building on an ethos and structure that has kept customers returning, there is its counterpart - the name change or a strategic update that leaves partners and customers alike asking, ‘what was wrong with the way things were before?’
In fact, it was an insurance business that recently provoked amusement and puzzlement in equal measure with its seemingly unprovoked decision to amend its perfectly logical (not to mention historically resonant) name into a confusing jumble of letters that required a pronunciation guide, as Standard Life Aberdeen became Abrdn. And yet, while I enjoyed reading the variety of industry commentary regarding the renovation, the reaction has highlighted the more complex issues working behind the scenes of such change.
Fear of missing out (or FOMO, for the more culturally literate of you) is a very real concern for many individuals but, especially over the last year, its influence has started to creep into organisations. With so much news about innovation and revolution from even the most modest of businesses, there is understandably a question mark over those companies which have not, for whatever reason, made the same inroads.
These businesses are the corporate equivalent of the kid left holding an empty package at the end of pass-the-parcel, watching their peers snap up the latest tech and wondering where they missed a beat. Where new tech or data analytics aren’t possible, branding offers an alternative means of a revamp - but with each of these advancements, necessity has to meet availability to be of any genuine use.
Of course, it’s the same with people - who among us has not felt that overriding pressure to keep up to date with the latest gadget available, buoyed by one of those two unfailing agents of consumerism – feeling like we should, or knowing that we can. On a personal level, I have no practical advice to give, I still use a Kindle so old it has burn marks down its back, while a newer model passively decomposes in a drawer somewhere. I still use a shattered old mobile though its replacement arrived several months ago. I’m not going to preach to the choir if I’ve never owned a hymn book.
As individuals, we each have to make these choices by ourselves, for ourselves. But on a business level, every decision undertaken reverberates in the lives of the people who dedicate their working hours to a company and the customers who place their trust in its decision-making process. It’s a show of trust to be an employee, to be a customer or to be a business partner of an insurance business - and this trust needs to be repaid through a carefully considered corporate strategy that considers the impact of business decisions, from the smallest to the largest, on every stakeholder.
There’s no doubt that the beacon of consumer expectations has well and truly been lit and people are looking for more speed, relevance and innovation from insurance services than ever before. And, where appropriate, that innovation whether it’s in the form of data analytics, new technology or indeed, a branding overhaul, is going to be welcomed and appreciated.
I would only add that innovation for innovation’s sake is exactly that – no matter what you call it, it’s not the same as progress.
