In the past couple of years, auto insurance has sprung into a position as one of the noisiest advertising categories in the world. Whether it’s the Geico cavemen or All State State Farm at the MLB All-Star Game, there’s apparently a lot of money to be made by getting in front of our eyeballs to talk insurance rates. But an underdog success story is forming around Liberty Mutual, which has moved its marketing approach to meaning and is starting to reap some powerful returns.

Thanks to David Hessekiel at the Cause Marketing Forum, I found the video interview below with Liberty Mutual’s Senior VP of Communications, Steven Sullivan. Sullivan tells an impressive story of Liberty Mutual’s strategy for increasing its share of the profitable auto insurance market, from a position as a smaller player with smaller budget.

What I found most fascinating was that Liberty Mutual and its new advertising agency, Hill-Holliday, started to build its strategy by looking within. They gravitated to the company’s mission statement, which ended with the line: “helping people live safer, more secure lives.” They then interviewed employees to understand what they felt was special about Liberty Mutual. This research led to a strong overall belief that, “at the end of the day, we do the right thing.”

Liberty Mutual saw a connection between its employees and the customers it most coveted. The connection was a shared belief in the importance of personal responsibility. However, the team realized that just another 30-second ad would not be enough….

How do you really make something like that tangible? How do you connect with people in a way that’s not just another claim from a big insurance company that people are going to disbelieve?” (Steven Sullivan, Senior VP of Communications, Liberty Mutual)

The marketing team’s solution was to use television and print ads to build awareness of the importance of personal responsibility, and then drive them to engage and discuss the issues with others. The hub of this deeper engagement has been a website called The Responsibility Project, which includes video stories of personal choices around responsibility. And Liberty Mutual poses engaging debate questions on popular news sites - for example, asking if government should be responsible for regulating trans fats in restaurants.

While many brands claim that their consumers wish to engage in a dialogue, Sullivan has proof. Within months of its campaign launch, the company received more than 3,000 requests thanking them for promoting this message and asking for copies of the commercials that they could share in schools and churches. One man who doesn’t drive even sent in a $20 donation to the “cause.”

This Liberty Mutual campaign hits on what we label as “achievement” in the realm of meaningful marketing.  It is the highest form of meaning in that it has the potential to actually help people improve their lives, their family, and the world. The company is continuing its success and deepening its impact; for example, it has partnered with NBC to develop two made-for-TV movies that will promote the theme of personal responsibility.

And at the end of the day, this campaign seems to be a significant business builder. Liberty Mutual’s premium revenue in auto insurance is up 17.4% to $3.6 billion in the most recent six months, in part due to “strong customer retention and new business growth.” The added benefit is that by bonding with people who believe in personal responsibility, they are keeping and attracting the most profitable customers - the ones who take personal responsibility for not getting into auto accidents in the first place! Sure enough, the six-month numbers show that auto liability losses are down.

Our goal is to get people to say that Liberty Mutual shares my values and I’m going to get my insurance from them.” (Steven Sullivan, Senior VP of Communications, Liberty Mutual)

I also believe there is a strong long-term benefit to be seen in Marketing with Meaning and this specific  example. While Geico might be remembered fondly for years for its cute cavemen and gecko, Liberty Mutual has a chance of deeply linking in our minds as a company that stands for something uniquely important to our lives and society overall.

On Monday, November 3, a recent legend in the marketing world, P&G Global Marketing Officer Jim Stengel, retired from the client side. He is joining the client-service side for the first time in his life, and he’s joining a handful of us who are trying to take marketing to a higher level.

Stengel’s website and a Wall Street Journal article describe his new vocation—to help companies other than P&G succeed through “purpose-based marketing.” Through our work with P&G as a client, we’ve had a chance to see inside Stengel’s model of Brand Purpose. It’s an incredibly powerful new way of looking at brand building, based on P&G’s best brands, as well as best practices from some of the most valuable brands outside the company’s walls.

I cannot share this inside perspective here, but I can point you to a recent speech by Stengel at the University of Cincinnati. In one of his last appearances as a P&G leader, he spoke of his learnings from a lifetime of building purposeful brands, and alluded to the lessons he plans to share. Some of my favorite quotes and examples included:

• “Our studies show that brands with the most market trust have the highest marketing share.”
• Tide’s Clean Start program, which provides laundry services for victims of natural disasters, had a “far greater lift” in business impact than traditional advertising, and significantly raised key equity measures.
• Spend time with consumers, not just asking them how they use your products, but how they spend their lives, and figure out how you can positively impact their lives.
• “Every employee must live the ideals of the (purpose-driven) brand.”

As I alluded to above, Stengel is not only joining a legion of ex-P&Gers, but he is joining a small group of people and organizations that are trying to define what we choose to call Marketing with Meaning. I’ve actually had the chance to personally share Marketing with Meaning with Jim, and we found a good synergy between the two concepts. Brand Purpose is primarily based on how a brand redefines what it stands for—its driving purpose in society. Marketing with Meaning picks this up by helping Purpose Brands communicate with their customers in a new way—one beyond interruption that helps achieve its purpose. Drew Neisser, of Marketing as Service fame, makes a good point that we all have a common belief in purposeful brands, but that agencies are needed to bring the purpose to life.

Interestingly, in March 2007, just as I was putting together the full Marketing with Meaning concept to share with clients, Stengel spoke at the AAAA conference and said words that struck me:

What we really need is a mind-set shift… that will make us relevant for today’s consumers.  From ‘telling and selling’ to building relationships.”

Jim’s words convinced me that we were onto something with Marketing with Meaning after all: If the largest marketer in the world (and the one who perhaps succeeded more with “telling and selling” than anyone) saw the need for change, the rest would not be far away.

We’ll keep watching and partnering with Stengel as he joins the mission to make marketing more meaningful. It should be a even more successful ride with him onboard.

There’s not a marketing guru on the planet who hasn’t pointed to the Nike+ system as an example of where all brands should be going.

I’ve been as guilty as all the other gurus, as I believed the system was a perfect fit with meaningful marketing. Back in my entries about our trip to the Cannes Advertising Festival, I fawned over the program. I’ve brought the Nike+ case study in front of a few clients and it will appear in our upcoming book. But whenever I have spoken or written about Nike+ I have felt a little embarrassed that I have never personally used it. Our President, Jay Woffington, is all over it and supplies me with insights, but that wasn’t enough. Recently, however, I’ve gotten myself back into the running habit big time, and I felt it was a perfect reason to get some first-hand experience with the “God Shoe.”

Getting Started

It turns out that some running shoes I bought three years ago were Nike+ capable, so all I had to do was order the iPod+sensor kit. It came in the typical, beautiful Apple style of packaging. I had to commandeer my wife’s iPod Nano even though pink is not my color. Within minutes I was up and literally running on my basement treadmill.

Overall, the concept works as advertised. A woman’s voice calls out your mile or time splits and adds gentle encouragement. The sensor is very accurate (correct on average, but has random, incorrect splits once in a while), and the iTunes software has no problem receiving the data and uploading it to the Nike+ website. The overall experience met my pretty lofty expectations. Now for the analysis…

What I Love

True runners know that there is something special about tracking your runs and looking back on your progress. My Dad, for example, has a running journal that he has kept for decades. In each of my first three runs, I was still sweaty and out of breath as I synced my Nike+ and “got credit” for my workout. The site has nice touches, such as a graph of your speed and distance. I liked that a special message said, “Congrats on your first 11 miles; now make it 100.”

I haven’t played with all of the features, but a few things stand out for me. I absolutely love the “Human Race 10k” that is happening around the world this Sunday. I signed up right away, giving me a new challenge and the feeling of participating and uploading. A key focus of the program is the Challenges tool, where people have posted a variety of small and large contests. A few buddies have a one-on-one running competition that I might join soon. I also like what Nike is doing with its “Nike+ Mini” application. It’s an avatar that you design, and its running pace is a live reflection of how much you’ve been running lately (mine is above). I do think Nike is thinking small, though, with only a rudimentary Facebook application (where’s the widget for my desktop and this blog?). Finally, I really like features such as special music motivation soundtracks that you can buy on iTunes.

Improvements Needed

There are a few important areas that I think the Nike+ system, site, and community are missing. First, the site itself is extremely slow. You would think a giant video is loading every time you move from one feature to the next. I’ve actually lost patience a few times and decided not to explore something new because of the delay. My guess is that the Nike team and agency chose cool design over simplicity and speed, which speaks to my issue around prioritizing user experience in these programs.

Second, the data presentation is very, very basic. There is no way to truly analyze your performance over time, and there are no insights or suggestions from Nike based on your runs. It would be very easy for Nike+ to, say, calculate helpful information such as the number of calories burned (I later discovered this but had to go through the FAQ section). I would also like to see Nike’s sensor be able to judge elevation, which would add another dimension of measurement and challenges to the daily run log.

Third, the program is missing out on a lot of basics that other smaller brands with tiny budgets have embedded. An obvious miss is the lack of the ability to post blog or journal entries about your runs; another is the inability to create a network of friends within the site. I’m also really surprised that Nike+ hasn’t learned from video game marketers and included rankings of where you stand versus everyone else in the system. I can tell you how my high score ranks against all Guitar Hero players, for example; why not be able to see where I rank on speed and distance among everyone else who ran this week?  Finally, there’s no search bar for help or other info, which is very odd.

Conclusion: Nike+ almost completely lives up to the mega-hype, but it needs to constantly improve to attract and retain runners. I have definitely formed a digitally enabled relationship with Nike through this program, and the brand is providing a free service that is adding a lot of value to my life. I will be recommending this product to others, and as long as Nike+ keeps doing the job for me, I’ll buy Nike shoes and other products for life. I really can’t wait to go home and run with my Nike+ system after work today.

That said, I hope that Nike has enough focus on supporting this platform. Creating a value-added digital service is still a very new marketing and business model for Nike. The brand makes money off of shoes, not websites, which will continually put pressure on the program. I have seen this pressure often in relationship marketing programs that we have created for our clients. And I have no idea how many people are in Nike+, so it’s hard to calculate what an ROI might be for the program.

During my most recent Nike+ data upload I was asked to complete a survey about my experience with the program. This in itself suggests that the brand gets the need to keep improving on what seems to be working very well so far. I’ll keep running and sharing my personal experiences with this meaningful marketing program.

UPDATES from my experience:

• (9/7/08) I’ve never seen Nike actually report how many people are using the system.  I think I’m pretty close to a good estimate, though: There is a page that lists the number of members that have recorded 100 miles, which I think is a pretty fair judge of ongoing use.  As of 9/7/08 there are 17,086 pages of members with 14 members per page.  That makes 239,204 people.  Overall, this is a smaller number than most would assume, given the hype around the product.  I’m not at all surprised, though, it takes time to build up a community like this (think Awareness, Trial…) and anything around technology like this takes time for people to be comfortable.  I’m looking forward to joining the 100 mile club - 52 down, 48 to go!
• I made 100 miles - very cool to experience the achievement and get the following code to brag about it:
• 

I discovered upon returning from vacation yesterday that this very blog has been ranked as #39 on Junta’s list of the top 42 content marketing blogs. Just a few weeks ago, one of my star Group Account Directors, Jason Ruebel, nominated Marketing with Meaning for the list, and sure enough here we are. It’s a great sign that we’re onto something, and I’m proud to share the honor with everyone at our agency.

I think this blog and the overall concept of Meaningful Marketing fits pretty well under the category of “content marketing.“ Wikipedia confirms a general definition of “content” in new media circles. At the time of this posting, it called content “information and experiences that may provide value for an end-user/audience.”

It is ironic that just today another team of mine at Bridge Worldwide was discussing how we could help a key client build meaningful marketing into its existing process of brand planning. We talked about how this client is a big believer in maximizing the “Context” of communication; in other words, picking media placement where the target consumer is most willing to pay attention to and act on the brand’s message. This is a smart approach, and likely results in higher return on the media investment. But it’s missing something…

I believe Marketing with Meaning is less about “context” - or finding the best time to get in front of a consumer’s eyeballs - and more about “content” - or creating something that people find valuable in itself. By definition, a good “Content Strategy” must be meaningful and is judged by consumers’ engagement level rather than eyeball impressions. We’ll be helping this client create a meaningful content strategy that should take marketing planning to an even higher return on investment.

Thinking about what content a brand can provide for its consumers is the kind of exercise that leads to best-in-class work like Nike+ or Wrigley’s Candystand. It gets brands to move out of the routine of 3-month initiatives and TV copy, and more into long-term relationships, services, and, well, meaning.

It appears that great minds think alike when it comes to meaningful marketing, as I share the second example this week of a brand that aims to improve our brains. Yesterday I wrote about how Sanyo is marketing its new batteries with crossword puzzles to recharge your brain. Today I share how Westin is making customers smarter in the bathroom.

Over the weekend I was at the Westin hotel in the Dallas Galleria, and when reaching for a glass of water I noticed a very unique take on the classic paper coaster. As seen above (answer below), Westin has used this previously wasted white space to make us smarter. It’s a very small but enjoyable way for Westin to show its commitment to improving our stay in many ways.

There are other, more obvious ways the hotel has done this, such as an outstanding gym, but I’m probably more impressed by little details like this one. As a marketer, I know that, while this seems easy, it actually can be tough. Items like this coaster are usually considered cost centers rather than marketing opportunities. I can see a huge internal debate with the finance guy about whether the incremental $.03 per hotel room per day for this special printing is going to drive ROI. But smart service organizations are starting to realize that every detail of the consumer experience can drive satisfaction.

And unlike Sanyo, Westin follows up on its concept with a nice digital presence with additional content.  There are further brain builders, a memory assessment, workout recommendations, and a 5-Day Challenge to promote healthy brain and body habits.

Many hotels are the same, so even a 30-second interaction with a 3-cent coaster can drive people back to spend another $300 per night at the Westin Galleria.