The marketing of insurance has becoming a lot more interesting in recent years. BrandChannel recently featured an article about some of the efforts in the space. Many of the major players in the space are trying to use sensationalistic imagery in coordinated efforts in both traditional mass media advertising and social media. The whole goal is to be memorable, promoting brand awareness and positive brand beliefs. Certainly, many of these ads have a fun component to them.

Here are some of the more notable ad campaigns of recent vintage in the space:

• Allstate’s Mayhem series
• State Farm creating “Cliff Paul”, the assisting agent to distressed human beings and fictitious twin brother of NBA point guard Chris Paul, who happens to be one of the NBA’s assists leaders
• Progressive’s “Flo”
• Geico’s “Gecko”

With regard to these specific companies, it is clear that these 4 are going to be finding new ways to capture our attention and get their brand message across. Allstate is expanding the presence of “Mayhem” in the social media channel. The “Mayhem” guy has his own social media accounts, including an @Mayhem on Twitter. Characters like “Mayhem”, “Flo”, and the “Gecko” seem like something you’d see out of the consumer products world. For instance, Procter & Gamble’s Old Spice brand had the “Old Spice Guy” popping up in various spots in both traditional and digital channels.

These are not the only companies that are committed to use of advertising. Matt Jauchius, Nationwide’s CMO, recently noted that their company’s ad spend

would continue to rise 10-15% per year in the years to come. At Nationwide, ad spending has increased about 15% in 2013, on top of an 11.8% increase in 2012. The examples of these companies show that the property & casualty segment needs to be advertising to get brand awareness.

Brand awareness is one component of Internet research, and more and more consumers, once aware of the need for property & casualty insurance, start taking their decision making process to online channels.  Jauchius also reiterated the importance of the local agent model, emphasizing that the distributed marketing model will still have a presence in the insurance field for the foreseeable future. Every insurance brand, regardless of how much they are spending, wants to see a better marketing ROI, one that will result in increases in client acquisitions or retentions.

Insurance marketing is a hot space to be in right now. The increase in competitiveness in advertising will eventually enable those who optimize the marketing communications mix most effectively to have the best marketing ROI. There’s going to be an emphasis on multi-channel marketing, due to the proliferation of channels where there’s a decent target market present. Using the various channels in the best manner possible is going to be the key factor to driving success.