The directory shows the fifth floor of the building in downtown Toronto belongs to Sonnet. And of course, when you get there, the door and the sign behind the reception desk says Sonnet, too. Much like its ubiquity during recent high-profile events like the World Cup of Hockey, the newly-launched financial services entity Sonnet is everywhere — so much so that it’s almost easy to overlook the rebranding of the firm’s parent company, Economical Insurance.
For Michael Shostak, however, the work to make Economical (which is headquartered in Waterloo, Ont.) more accessible and more modern is arguably a bigger CMO challenge than building a direct insurance firm from the ground up. It started last month with a relaunched website, which was not only designed to have a cleaner look and feel, but also content has been rewritten in simpler language.
“This is a company that’s been around for 145 years in property and casual insurance, but the question for our leadership team has been what do we want to look like in the next 100 years?” Shostak said. “Part of that is recognizing that, since our products are sold through a broker network as the primary interface, the consumer doesn’t necessarily know our brand.”
The new site tackles that issue head-on by trying to demystify insurance. It also makes the case for using a broker with a section called “The Broker Difference” and a broker directory tool that is placed in as prominent a position as the search bar on Google’s homepage.
Similarly, the more accessible content is designed to help brokers recommend Economical to their clients. In research it has conducted as part of its brand refresh, Shostak said the company found consumers were primarily driven to use brokers based on convenience, but also to ask questions, compare coverage and walk through options.
“For product that’s essential, there’s been a real gap in the insurance sector where people feel like a number,” he said. “What they want is to have a real dialogue.”
Once Economical acquires a customer, Shostack said the next question is how to continue that dialogue beyond merely renewing a policy. Due to the specialized nature of the business, that means he and his team make use of some third party shops but also operate a sort of small internal agency to produce some of the most critical content. Like it or not, the biggest competitor for Economical Insurance is not necessarily a rival firm, but consumer apathy.
“It can be a low-interest category,” he admitted. “Our focus is on improving customer confidence, and that applies to all parts of the business.”
