The Skyrocketing Insurance Category

Hi BillDid I give you my take on the mostamp160interesting category in marketing today1 scale big and growing2 creative is key 3 data models4 full funnel marketersAnd when I yell at my friends on the media side they say quotOh yeah that39s truequotThought you might want to shout it tooTimSo of course we set up a Zoom to allow my brain to reach closure and ultimately to decide that Tim was right and the topic deserved this articlequotDid you notice how much the insurance category is spending on advertising nowadaysquot Tim asked me I had a vague idea that it had increased since the last time I looked but was surprised when he started to rattle off the numbersIn 2008 TRA had clocked Geico at over 400 millionyear in US adspend and Allstate Progressive and State Farm at 300400 million In the second week of December 2020 see Statista graph Geico was spending at an annualized rate of just under 18 billion more than 4x the 2008 number Progressive at 15B also 4x range vs 2008 State Farm at 865 million more than 2x their 2008 benchmark and Ad Age places Allstate in 2019 at 854 million again more than 2x where they were in 2008In the second week of December 2020 Geico outspent every other advertiser in the US Progressive was third and State Farm eighth out of all advertisers in all categories No other vertical had three advertisers in the top ten auto retail and cellular each had two advertisers in the top ten that week There39s nothing magic or biased about that week it was the latest Statista data posted on the internet for US adspendTim had indeed noticed something that had snuck up on me and maybe on you I thought it was worthwhile bringing it to your attention just in caseAt TRA we had three of these insurance companies as clients They were very mathdriven companies of course their very business depended upon actuarial probabilities Tim also pointed this out about them He also noticed a number of other interesting details about themAll the ads except the Allstate Dennis Haysbert ads are silly Tim conjectures that this is perhaps to mitigate the friction filled consumer journey in that category many complex details could be anxiety about picking the wrong horseMany different ads as well as their humor ameliorates the very high levels of frequencyTwo hypotheses come to mind to explain why this vertical has been upping its adspend to such a degreeMy company RMT would attribute increased adspend by insurance companies as evidence of increased demand due probably to the security motivation being increased by world events which create insecurity 2008 market swoon the first Black President of the US the Trump presidency rising competition from China etcBased on the work alongside these clients at TRA we could see that their decisions about how much to spend on advertising and how to allocate that by media was very much determined scientifically suggesting that either it39s categorydriven or perhaps most advertisers are not spending enough on advertisingIf there is even a possibility of the latter we are all underspending I asked Standard Media Index to share with us the last few years39 ad spend trends in the insurance vertical in the US and just in case their media type shifts might be worth other types of advertisers considering how their media allocations have been changingIt39s interesting to note that despite being a complicated consumer decision process which usually tips the scales toward digital these insurance giants are still spending more in TV than in digitalInterestingly they are also spending more in broadcast than in cable network including quottier 1 sports and other expensive programming tooquot as Tim pointed out Note in the table below how broadcast increased in 2021Very much countering the trend of national advertisers as regards spot television of late they have been increasing their use of spot 26 in the first quarter of 2021 for example and the spot TV percentage has been increasing since 2017What do they know that most of us haven39t figured out yetClick the social buttons above or below to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE MEDIAVILLAGE CONTENT | BECOME A THOUGHT LEADERSHIP CONTRIBUTOR

The Skyrocketing Insurance Category

Author

Publish date

Channel

Bill Harvey

"About That with Carl Mayer": Involved Media Connected Audience Fall 2024 Report (Episode 5) - By Carl Mayer

More Videos:

SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE MEDIAVILLAGE CONTENT | BECOME A THOUGHT LEADERSHIP CONTRIBUTOR

The Skyrocketing Insurance Category

Enjoying This Commentary? There's More to Love

Bill Harvey

TAGS:

"About That with Carl Mayer": Involved Media Connected Audience Fall 2024 Report (Episode 5) - By Carl Mayer

Cookies