vivid shining brands

From Ad Age, a good story about Lisa Bacus, CMO of American Family Insurance and how she's remaking the company's image with a really sound media and creative strategy: Like many advertising categories, insurance marketing was heavy on tactics and price-driven deals but short on branding in 2009. That's where Lisa Bacus, VP-marketing for American Family Insurance, saw an opportunity -- to tell brand-driven stories while her competitors, such as State Farm and Allstate, were driving home the literal value of their packages. Beginning in fall 2009, the insurance marketer and its media agency, Mindshare Entertainment, embarked on its first branded-entertainment strategy, encompassing several integrated entertainment programs with multiple media partners. The first, focused on agent interaction, was led by "In Gayle We Trust," a branded web series for NBC.com (written by Brent Forrester of "The Office") featuring a fictional American Family Insurance a...

In one of the most entertaining campaigns in the consumer insurance at the moment, Progressive is looking for an assistant to Flo , the good-humored and hardworking spokesperson for the consumer insurer. Do you have what it takes? A quick review of the competition, through the videos they've submitted, shows that while 99.9% are less charming and articulate than Dick Cheney, more than couple would be hard to beat with their self-avowed zest and zeal for insurance and unique approaches... Now, there seem to be an inordinate number of auditions from New York. Read into that what you will.

From an article in Advertising Age today : Though there's still widespread disagreement of just when the industry will put the recession firmly behind it, one thing's clear: Whenever it happens, marketers had better be ready. Forward thinkers such as Allstate, Walmart, New Balance, Macy's, Procter & Gamble, McDonald's and Bank of America are already paving the way to recovery by spending on marketing and product innovation, cementing relationships with new consumers and rewarding loyalists who stuck by their brands during the bad times. They are also creating products and messaging that bridge from recession to recovery. So, too, has Allstate, which is on the air with a spot, "The Great Recovery," which refers to the recession in past tense by asking viewers how they'll look back on it. "People are ready to stop being miserable," said CMO Mark LaNeve. He said the company is anticipating that consumers will be re-evaluating their finances ...