Tom Holmes talks to Mark Evans, Marketing Director at Direct Line Group.
DLG is a British multi-national general insurer with a broad portfolio of market-leading brands and is one of the biggest spending advertisers in the UK.
Mark joined DLG in March 2012 in the build up to their IPO process. He started his career at Mars and for 10 years worked on a number of their global brands across sectors and geographies. Subsequent to Mars, Mark worked at 118118 and then HSBC.
Mark is a Fellow of the Marketing Academy.
TH: What is your primary focus?
ME: We have some fantastic brands within Direct Line Group and during 2014 we have been focussing on the reinvigoration of the Direct Line brand. We have been working on bringing Direct Line back to its former glory, as an innovator and the brand that is once more going to redefine insurance.
TH: What is the biggest issue for your brand today and how are you addressing it?
ME: We know that customers want a an insurance brand that can minimise the interruption an unexpected event has on their lives, but competitors mainly talk about general aspects of protection or the price, not the performance at the point of need, which has led to a commoditised market.
Direct Line is addressing this by demonstrating our intent to be “fixers” – to put things right in customers’ darkest hour, when they need us to get their life back on track. The “wolf” campaign is working well to communicate this, but this is not just a rebrand or a new creative; this is being backed up in the way we do things – fundamental changes in how we serve our customers, as well as new propositions.
TH: Is there a broader initiative that you are driving for the brand outside of the day-to-day?
ME: The reinvigoration of the Direct Line brand is the Trojan horse for our broader challenge. Direct Line was the innovator in the 80s, creating the direct insurance market itself, and therefore has a responsibility to lead the sector back to a position of being trusted by consumers.
TH: What attributes do you think are required for success for a CMO today?
ME: Curiosity is critical. To be curious about emerging trends and the digitisation of media is increasingly important as the pace of change in the world increases. But it’s also critical to stay curious for those deeper insights that can unlock a brand or a market and become an organising thought for an organisation. For the reinvigoration of Direct Line, we spent a long time listening to what our customers really wanted and from this tried to make our creative brief so simple that it would allow for as much creativity as possible.
TH: What work are you most proud of over the course of your career?
ME: Without doubt the latest ‘Wolf’ campaign. Not just because it is cool advertising that will deliver the numbers, but because underpinning it is a golden thread that runs throughout the organisation. From social to digital to propositions, to customer service and even through into culture, the “fixer” campaign has galvanised the brand and the organisation alike.
TH: Industry wide, what work has excited you most this year?
ME: The most memorable piece of communication I have seen this year is the “Children See, Children Do” campaign that came out of Australia and went viral. As a parent, it made me stop and think about the importance of the role-model responsibilities that parents face.
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