I’m on the constant lookout for healthy brand companies – those with a brand idea that is aligned internally and externally and integrated across all touch-points of the brand experience.
My most recent experience is with youi. Within the insurance supermarket – a largely commoditised marketplace with 100s of products, limited point of difference, price comparison playing a key decision-making role, low levels of satisfaction, loyalty and predisposition to switching – the youi experience really stands out.
The name ‘youi’ and the strap line ‘we get you’ is a great start point – that’s essentially their brand idea and the promise they have to live up to across every touch-point. Do they?
My experience is that, in an increasingly faceless industry, despite being an online insurer with no stores, youi makes it feel as though they have intimate understanding of the customer.
The initial advertising campaign that takes the youi van from suburb to suburb, comparing savings not price. The act of taking your brand to the people is powerful, it goes beyond saying ‘we get you’ to demonstrating ‘we get you’. In comparing savings not price, youi demonstrates their understanding of the customer in their desire to save but still looking for ‘value for money’.
Much research and publicity indicates that young families are feeling the pressure of their incomes reducing to less than two, with the cost of children, cost of living increasing and wages staying the same. But having spent their single and double income no kids time paying for quality, Gen Xers are value for money vs price conscious. A recent Accenture paper on the insurance market indicates more factors come to play than price, with consumers prepared to weigh up the cost of reputation, flexibility, convenience, personalised advice and innovation – for products that better suit their unique situation and needs.
What youi has done since, is really clever, taking a referral approach to their marketing in a social media way. The new advertising campaign showcases real customers who have saved money and are satisfied with the experience. I saw this ad and went directly to their website – thinking that if those people have had a great experience, then perhaps I could too. On their website, a lot more happy faces of real customers, a total of 60,000 customers reached, satisfaction score of 85% and a stream of real-time quotes from happy customers, 5 minutes ago, 8 minutes ago etc… Wow. This impressed me in more ways than one. From a prospective customer point of view, I wanted to give youi a go. From a professional marketer perspective, I was impressed by the way the offline and online experience was a seamless and perpetual loop that seems to be snow-balling using a real-time social approach. Furthermore, they seem to have ticked all the boxes in the ‘playing to win’ strategy that Accenture has outlined as the new business model for the customer-centric digital insurer:
1. Know me – customer relevance
2. Show me you know me – relationships at scale
3. Delight me – seamless experience
4. Enable me – inherently mobile
5. Value me – naturally social
Source: Accenture 2013, The Digital Insurer, Consumer-Driven Innovation Survey
Then I couldn’t not follow through to see what it was like to be a customer, to see if the experience actually did deliver against what youi and their customers were saying. And it did. The product page on the website is so simple to follow and fill in. 3 clicks until youi had identified me as a preferred customer (I wonder if everyone is, but that doesn’t matter, it made me feel special). After the first page of filling in just my name and selecting the type of insurance I was looking for from a drop down box, I received an SMS ‘here’s your secure PIN that you will need to enter to see your amazing tailor-made Youi quote’. Cool. My data is safe, the product is going to be tailor-made for my needs and the experience is going to be amazing. After the 3rd click, they said a customer service representative would call me, and they did within seconds. The guy was super friendly (a similar contagiously OTT experience to JetStar, where you can’t get annoyed with them for over-stepping the familiarity boundary) asking me how I was and then talking me through the insurance options. No pressure but exceeding informative and helpful.
Youi. youi get me. youi get insurance. youi get marketing.
Written by Rachel Bevans.
Rachel is a healthy brand champion and owner of The Healthy Brand Company
Feel free to share with acknowledgements to The Healthy Brand Company and supporting references.
(c) The Healthy Brand Company, 2014
