JWT’s AnxietyIndex is designed as a place to discuss how brands and consumers are responding to the global recession. With daily content updates, AnxietyIndex.com includes contributions from around JWT’s network, offering a truly global perspective.
During the course of the economic crisis, we’ve seen many financial companies topple, and the survivors are playing up stability and strength in their communications. In two new commercials from Western & Southern Financial Group, the financial services firm brings these concepts literally to life.
The spots feature financial types standing firm despite challenges from all angles. In “Strength,” a buttoned-up businessman remains unfazed while being successively ambushed by a sumo wrestler, an elephant and a wrecking ball. He calmly boasts of the firm’s double-A-plus rating from S&P, a score that makes Western & Southern one of the nine strongest life insurance groups in the world, according to the claim. In “Stability,” a businesswoman on stilts withstands similar bizarre attacks, including one from a villain shooting tennis balls at her.
The simple language and concept are a refreshing change in a category that leaves many consumers confused and anxious. It’s likely this messaging will sit well with weary viewers who feel let down by the financial industry.
Chrysler sales have not come back as strongly as the automaker had hoped, so earlier this month the company announced a summer sales event that included a 60-day “Regret Free Purchase” incentive. Customers who buy a participating Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge or Ram Truck vehicle can return it within 60 days, and Chrysler will make the first two payments. The commercial, true to the Dodge brand’s use of sophomoric humor, compares buying a Chrysler vehicle with getting married: You may regret your recent nuptials, but you’ll be happy with your Chrysler purchase; if not, return it.
General Motors, post-bankruptcy, ran a similar incentive last September, and Chrysler made a similar offer on its minivans earlier this year. I’m not a fan of marketing that uses a negative point of view to make a positive point, which puts doubt in the consumer’s mind. I might regret buying shoes I don’t need, but a car? Or is it that I might regret buying a Chrysler? The question for the consumer is whether Chrysler is the best choice right now, between the bailout, quality issues and lack of new product—why re-plant that seed of doubt?
Hyundai’s successful “Assurance” program covers owner’s payments in the event they lose their job, sending a positive message that Hyundai stands behind its products and cares about its owners. Chrysler just hopes you won’t send it back!
Here in Pakistan, domestic home appliances brands have shown a significant communication shift during this recession. While pre-recession communication was centered on inspiring lifestyles, now it’s all about a reason to believe, and brands are highlighting features and facts. A good example is Dawlance, which targets the upper middle class.
A pre-recession commercial, from April 2008, poetically promises viewers that the brand is “As reliable as mother’s love, as reliable as shade in the sweltering heat of the sun, as reliable as true love, as reliable as a true promise.” A more recent TV spot drops the poetry for hard facts: A spokeswoman “at Dawlance i-novate Center” tells us that “in refrigerators I need quick cooling, and a large five-piped compressor gives me instant cooling. Dawlance understands my needs and is reliable for me.” Other spots highlight different features.
The problem here is that since the product is not significantly different from those offered by rivals, the brand is differentiated largely by the emotional promise propagated. By abandoning the emotional approach, Dawlance becomes more generic—the provider of just another product, one that could just as easily come from another manufacturer.
How much does Toyota care about safety? Enough to use the word seven times in this new 30-second ad, which touts the fact that the automaker is investing “$1 million every hour” in research to enhance vehicle safety. Hammering the message home seems like the way to go, given Toyota’s challenge in regaining consumer confidence after recalling 8 million vehicles worldwide. Toyota is doing this through both news headlines (e.g., the recent announcement that it is replacing executives at five of its North American factories) and its messaging, which now is all safety, all the time.
The commercial points viewers to toyota.com/safety, as does Toyota.com, whose landing page declares “Everyone deserves to be safe” and directs people to the microsite to learn more. Here, drivers can read about Toyota’s latest brake and traction safety systems in ways they can understand and see the technology explained in videos featuring young and older drivers, families, babies and Toyota engineers.
Given the widespread complaints that it was slow in responding to safety issues, Toyota needs to continually assure buyers that the company not only understands their concerns but shares them as well. Its continued emphasis on safety, coupled with details for concerned consumers, is a good start.
As a clean and efficient city with an ultra-modern sewage system, Singapore is not a place you would associate with flooding. But one freaky Wednesday morning in June, an intense and prolonged rain caused knee-high flooding in several parts of the island, including the tourist haven Orchard Road. Shops were flooded, buses were stuck on the road, and cars were floating in apartment buildings’ basement parking areas.
In a display of quick thinking amid anxiety, NTUC Income—a once stodgy state-owned insurance company—ran print ads the very next day. One headline assured readers that “We won’t leave you high and dry. Even when you’re waist-deep in water,” while copy in another ad promised that “you won’t have to worry about footing the bill, when you set foot on dry ground again.”
The resulting buzz has been phenomenal. But more than being clever advertising, this is a great example of how a speedy response is the best one in the real-time world we live in (especially for an insurance brand)—and that pre-empting anxiety is just as effective a strategy as responding to it.
As we’ve noted, a couple of recent commercials are tapping into today’s populist sentiment. Hyundai does a good job of this in a recent spot for the popular Assurance Program, hammering home its commitment to the little guy. While “the dust has started to settle, and some indicators are up—especially for the big guys,” Hyundai understands that many people are still anxious. So it’s sticking with its Assurance Program, reassuring viewers that “The economy hasn’t really turned around for any of us until it turns around for all of us.”
An Ad Age article, “Now’s the Time to Reset Marketing for Post-Recession,” cites this spot as an example of messaging that “bridge[s] from recession to recovery.” But a real recovery isn’t likely to happen soon—as we noted in our 10 trends for the year ahead, consumer spending in 2010 will look very much as it did last year, with people continuing to exercise restraint until they see more clear and dependable signs of stability. By addressing the current sense of instability—and the resulting anxiety—head on, Hyundai offers yet another example of smart marketing in a downturn.
The global recall of Toyota vehicles over a gas pedal problem is a case that will be interesting to watch over the coming weeks. How will consumers respond to a deeply trusted brand with a long history of success like Toyota suddenly failing on the public stage? Whether we like it or not, the rhythm of our lives is deeply linked to the brands we patronize. And if a brand as trusted as Toyota can fail its customers, who knows what’s next? It’s enough to make people anxious about brands. Especially given that faith in corporate institutions is already weak, with huge, seemingly solid financial brands having collapsed (e.g., Lehman Brothers) or come close (e.g., Merrill Lynch).
Some Americans have already taken action on their own through www.toyotarecall.org, an unofficial portal for all things on the recall. Toyota, your move.
In a recession year, what a surprise it was last month to see a modest Filipino family hauling a big box containing their new widescreen TV. Before they rushed off to do more shopping, in answer to my query they said the purchase was “thanks to the credit cards—their offers are better this month!”
Off I went to the appliance store to investigate. What I found is that banks were offering extended payment like never before. Credit cards from Citibank and BDO (Banco de Oro) touted “Buy now, pay in 2010” and “Pay much later” schemes. Surely a big help to the Filipino family with a primary breadwinner still working abroad and perhaps a little late coming home for Christmas. Or families still feeling unstable because a member lost a well-paying job in 2009. And banks know that in December, along with splurging on food for their family, the typical Filipino family loves TV Christmas specials and soap operas, now amplified for some in wide-screen splendor.
Assurances and guarantees were a dominant theme in marketing during this difficult year, helping to assuage consumer anxiety about spending. It kicked off with Hyundai’s widely copied Assurance Program. By late summer, GM was offering a “60-day satisfaction guarantee” (“If you don’t absolutely love your new vehicle, we’ll take it back”). In the online-travel category, Orbitz now offers both a “Price Assurance” program (if another customer books the same flight/hotel for less, Orbitz refunds you the difference) and a Low Price Guarantee (find a lower online fare for the same booking and Orbitz refunds the difference and gives you a $50 coupon). Competitor sites are doing likewise.
Now Gap is experimenting with putting this idea in the mall. Its Sprize program, so far only operating in the Vancouver area, has shoppers register for a Sprize card, which they show whenever they buy a Gap item; if the item’s price drops within 45 days, the difference is credited to the card. That credit is redeemable for up to a year.
This seems like a smart response to what’s become a sticky problem for retailers, which have been forced to slash prices this year, in effect training today’s value-conscious shoppers to wait for sales and offers (coupons, etc.). Since Gap’s refund is in the form of a credit, a good percentage of shoppers will likely spend extra once they’re back in the store or forget to redeem it at all. It will be interesting to see whether Sprize provides enough incentive to get bargain hunters to buy now and hope for discounts later.
There was a time when life insurance communication was quite somber, evoking fear about what might happen to your loved ones once you die or suffer an unexpected injury or illness. Once insurance plans came linked with investment in India, however, the sector transformed. People could see money returned even if their policy expired. There are now innumerable players offering investment-linked insurance, and the field is heavily cluttered.
The gears have shifted accordingly in communication, which now features vibrant, upbeat imagery—illustrating freedom from tension because your loved ones are secure just in case. The latest effort from Kotak Life Insurance, an established player, adopts a somewhat different approach. Its new brand positioning is “Faidey ka insurance” (insurance that’s financially rewarding), appealing to the rational rather than the emotional side and approaching insurance the same way as any other investment product. (This is backed by the fact that Kotak is also a well-known investment player with expertise in research and capital markets.)
The TV commercial features a Kotak agent in a living room, discussing child insurance plans with a family; as he talks about parents wanting their kids to take up various professions, the child here turns into an astronaut, doctor, cricketer and rock star. The agent notes that a child’s career path can’t be guaranteed and neither can the returns of a regular insurance plan. He describes how Kotak’s Child Plans ensure better returns, which helps parents finance the child’s education. The agent leaves with a piece of friendly advice: that a child must be given room to make his own career choice.
Assurances and guarantees were a dominant theme in marketing during this difficult year, helping to assuage consumer anxiety about spending. It kicked off with Hyundai’s widely copied Assurance Program. By late summer, GM was offering a “60-day satisfaction guarantee” (“If you don’t absolutely love your new vehicle, we’ll take it back”). In the online-travel category, Orbitz now offers both a “
