It’s all about the awards!

As another sunny week draws to a close, I am sitting at my desk with award ceremonies on my mind. On the one side, am looking back to last Friday and the inaugural Insurance Marketing & PR Awards. On the other, I'm looking forward to next week, when the insurance industry celebrates one of its biggies, The British Insurance Awards, and we also get to celebrate one of our other financial sector specialities when Investment Week presents their Fund Manager of the Year Awards, also being hosted at the Royal Albert Hall on the following night. Then, later in the year, we are proud to now be helping Legal Week Magazine with their own British Legal Awards.

Apart from the slight concern on behalf of my liver & kidneys that it’ll be two nights back to back at the events next week, it does serve as a reminder of the high professional standards the sectors we support strive to achieve and the pride that is rightly felt by those that ultimately gain recognition. The cynics amongst us are often quick to play down their importance, but for me, when I see the pride of those receiving awards and whoops of delight from their colleagues in the room, it fills me with a professional privilege that we get to work with a group of clients and people within them that care passionately about their businesses and strive every day to be the best of themselves.

We are proud to support them, love the diversity of designs we have created, congratulate all the winners and give an equal call to all of those entering for being proud of what they work hard to achieve.

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Here’s a small reminder of last week’s IPMRAs - you can even play Spot the Team!

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And the winner is?

We and the bookmakers still have a while to wait until this year’s British Insurance Awards winners are announced at the annual awards gathering at the Royal Albert Hall. But the shortlist is out and as proud supporter, design partner and sponsor of the event, we would like to pass on our congratulations to all those who have made the list.

Full details can be found here.

Click below to watch the shortlist announcement video - we challenge you not to get the backing song stuck in your head:

Good luck everybody and we will see you on 8th July at the RAH for a Top Dog night!

The Hux Interviews: Graeme Trudgill, Executive Director at BIBA

BIBA has just shared this video of Mark Huxley’s interview with BIBA Executive Director, Graeme Trudgill at the close of BIBA 2014.

Hux quizzes Graeme on his highlights from this year's conference, and the exciting pieces of work he’s brought with him.

Watch the video to hear their chat in full and to see the new guides launched by BIBA at the event.

Less Poking, More Broking! What the industry wants from social media

The insurance world is overcoming its fear of Social Media and realising the growing need for having a presence on channels such as LinkedIn and Twitter. However, knowing why and where to be on social media is not enough. The key to success is in knowing the types of content to deliver and how to deliver that content to the right audience. Social media is about engagement and encouraging your audience to, believe it or not, socialise with your brand. Although the clue is in the name, it is all too easy to forget that communicating via these networks should be focused on what your audiences want to gain from following you.

The buzz surrounding the #BIBA2014 and #BIBAFever hashtags last week demonstrated that brokers are catching up with the idea of online socialising and increasingly turn to these channels seeking relevant and timely information.

So what do brokers want?

According to Insurance Age’s latest Spring Sentiment Survey, the majority of brokers (86%) want product information, implying that insurers’ content on social channels should be a visually appealing, informative showcase of their products.

However, content should never be 100% selling, and needs variety to spark attention and engagement.

Respondents could select more than one option, and over 45% said they follow insurers hoping for opinion or thought-leadership pieces via social media. 44% think the likes of Twitter and LinkedIn should be used for business updates during surge claims events, while only 11% are impressed by amusing posts.

What types of content do you engage with most??

[photo credit: Rosaura Ochoa]

Playing the generation game in UK Insurance PLC

Do you know your Baby Boomers from Generation X, Generation Y and for that matter the newly appointed Generation Z? Generations X and Y already dominate the UK workforce by more than 65 per cent and culturally, they pose significant challenges for businesses and their relationships with customers.

I’m a child of the Baby Boomer generation (only just I might add!), having been born between 1945 and 1960. I find myself regularly noticing the differing subtleties between the Baby Boomer group, Generation X (1961-1980, or early 50’s-30’s) and Generation Y (1981-1995, or early 30’s to 19). What’s interesting is the rate at which those differences are becoming more apparent.

Within the next 5-10 years, Generation Y will come to dominate the purchasing market. From that point on, a whole new raft of deciders will prevail. Generation Y is driven by a high exposure to the media, the convenience of immediate access, on-demand services and an utter dependence on technology. Time magazine called them 'the most threatening & exciting generation since the baby boomers brought about social revolution'.

As customers, they expect far greater levels of engagement, accessible to them anywhere and at any time. For brands or organisations, it’s important to understand how your future target market wants to be communicated with, and through which channels, especially online.

In the workplace, employers would do well to understand the new and dynamic motivations of Generation Y. They require their roles to be more challenging and interesting, all whilst demanding clearer definitions of their career pathways than previous generations were ever afforded. This equally translates to their purchasing motivators.

Understanding the differences between these ever changing demographics will enable you to harness the right channels now to build relationships with new and existing customers, clients and partners. Failing to do so will hinder those future relationships, and stifle business growth.

It gets scarier

I’ve not really spoken about the scariest and most compelling generation of them all.

Anyone with younger families will no doubt notice the monumental differences in how their worlds are completely and utterly reliant upon constant connectivity to everything via technology. This new generation is being shaped by the legacy of the economic downturn, global warming, wiki-leaks, cloud computing, mobile devices, living their lives online & in public, self media production, unlimited internet speeds, instant access to all forms of music, video and the complete globalisation of everything. These technoholics, entirely dependent on their mastered IT skills and likely to launch nothing short of a full-scale panic alert during a power cut, have been branded Generation Z.

Generation Z will reshape the corporate world. Career multitaskers, they are far more likely to be found moving seamlessly between organisations, assuming short term roles whilst remaining plugged into digital media, eating 3D printed food and being permanently chauffeured by driverless cars.

And the most interesting part of it all? Generation Z started in 1995, which means they’re already moving into the workplace.