Tag Archives: Chicago

State Farm becoming a better neighbor with Next Door concept

As someone who worked on the State Farm account for a few years, I view the company’s latest concept with more than a casual interest. The company with the familiar “Like a good neighbor…” jingle is about to launch an entirely new retail idea smack dab in the middle of my neighborhood in Lakeview. And at least at a first glance, I think they’re on to something good that more in the insurance industry might want to take a closer look at doing themselves.

State Farm Next Door opens August 1st and the concept is a more open, casual community space that offers free Wi-Fi and coffee (via its Next Door Cafe) as well as personalized coaching/small group classes on financial matters that range from paying off student loans to learning how to budget your finances.

The "Good Neighbor" with a new look.

This may not seem like a huge departure from the typical agent office, but it is. Here’s why. For a long time, State Farm talked about the fact that their agents live in the same community as their customers. Which is normal. But even though you can continuously say, “We live where you live,” there’s nothing quite like actually demonstrating it visibly by being more of a central hub.

Plus, there will be no actual insurance sold at State Farm Next Door so they aren’t cannibalizing their own agents’ efforts by selling policies here. There will be financial consultants and all the services at Next Door are free. Personally, I think the latter part of that sentence is important for bringing down some barriers among younger people who would normally walk on by because they don’t see the point in planning when they don’t even have the funds to pay for ongoing classes.

Stepping out of the “Auto/Home/Life” rate rut.

Let’s be honest. You first walk into or call State Farm, Allstate, Farmer’s, etc. because you have a need for auto, home or life insurance. You need to get covered, you compare rates,  you buy. You don’t like your rate after a while? You look around, you compare again, you buy.

Fighting a branding battle based on rates doesn’t benefit State Farm. I never thought it has. It’s territory that Geico and Progressive have owned quite well for years. Even when State Farm talks about the dangers of “cut-rate car insurance,” they’re still planting the seed of shopping based on rates and playing into the hands of their competitors.

That’s why, even though the newest ad work for State Farm is entertaining, that’s not necessarily what I see pulling people in. I see the Next Door concept having real upside by broadening out from buckets of insurance sold from an agent behind a desk into more generalized classes on finance and budgeting for 20-somethings and 30-somethings in the neighborhood who needed that guidance but couldn’t find it up to this point. You don’t have to walk into Next Door with an intent to buy. You walk in with an intent to learn (sorry, I don’t think I’ll walk in with an intent to just have a cup of coffee when there’s Starbucks and Caribou close by, but I appreciate the offer).

No hard selling, new look

In a way, State Farm’s Next Door feels a lot like smart social media itself – not a hard sell but a place to inform a community. And possibly learn from it along the way. I also like the fact that State Farm has the guts to do a true departure design-wise (different logo, wood background) for this sub-brand of Next Door, because in this case anything that looks too close to the familiar auto/home/life color palette would be a bit of a turn-off. A bright red building would scream “State Farm,” but it wouldn’t say “come in with your financial questions or just to hang out.” The location doesn’t hurt being steps away from Trader Joe’s and the Diversey/Clark/Broadway intersection.

Some may think the idea is a stretch, but I disagree. I think for a brand that’s been around for as long as State Farm, it’s a stretch within their brand that makes sense and might even be overdue. Even more so than insurance and agents, State Farm is supposed to be about, well, being a Good Neighbor with warm, friendly guidance. I think the Next Door concept is authentic and true to that ideal. Will that translate into a steady flow of interested customers? Well, we don’t have to wait until the doors open. Let’s hear from you:

Does this type of cafe concept with free classes, coffee, Wi-Fi and “no strings attached” appeal to you from a financial services and insurance company? 

Beyond the Click-Through: Revisiting Web Banners as Billboard

I used to hate web banners with a passion – not the kind that sit at the top of the page or to the side, but the ones that literally scrolled across the text I was reading. These are perhaps the dumbest form of interruption marketing I can think of. If you really want to tick someone off into not buying your product or service, this is a great way to go. Essentially you’re saying: “We know what you were reading may have been amazingly important to you but we will prevent you from reading it – at least for a few seconds – until you click the “x” to remove our ad.”

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest.

That said, not all banners are as evil as that variety. And it’s time we gave some of those lesser intrusive web banners a new look without measuring them solely on whether or not someone clicked on it.

“Why?” you say. “Isn’t clicking through the banner to the website the whole point?”

Actually, no. Let’s talk about the worst-kept secret around: People are clicking through less and less. Not always because the banner is bad creatively, but because we’re there for another purpose – to read an article, watch a video, etc. We don’t want to be taken away from that. But does that mean we completely tune out web banners that make us aware of the product or service? Not usually. I’ve seen many a service that I am aware of and understand its benefits well enough…but have never clicked through to the website. I don’t have to. I get what they’re selling. It’s just that I don’t need to have an in-depth experience with them at this specific moment and may buy from them later. Is that bad? I argue that no – it is not.

How is it different than most of the billboards on the highway that you see on your way to work? That’s for awareness. You’re not going to dial their number or visit their website while driving 65mph. But if they’ve done their job well, you’ll remember it.

But that’s the extent of the relationship.

Web banners may work in a similar fashion for awareness yet cost significantly less and have at least 2 advantages:

1) They’re hopefully placed in a setting where your target audience tends to frequent. The traditional billboard is placed in an area where anyone could pass by.

2) There a chance, albeit a dwindling one, that someone will visit your site after viewing the ad. There’s an even smaller chance when you have a traditional billboard that merely has your name, logo and headline on it. Brand building? Maybe. Action taken as a result? Unlikely.

Billboards as we’ve known them aren’t dead. It’s just that we need to be demanding more of them. It’s no longer enough to stick a billboard on a “high traffic” road and say that the ultimate measure of success is that more people are aware of the brand when there are lower cost options to potentially achieve the same thing or better.

Which leads us back to web banners. Let’s agree that click-throughs are generally atrocious – .1% or 1 in 1000. But if we’re to look beyond that and focus more on the awareness/recall factor, we can see that this may not matter nearly as much as we thought, case in point the recent Mashable article, “Why Banner Ads Are Having A Banner Year.”

Yes, you should hold web banners accountable as part of the overall marketing mix to reach your goals. But their success or failure should not be measured in clicks alone. Which is why I think cost per impression (CPM) gets a bad rap at times.

To be clear, I don’t recommend web banners as part of every mix, but it’s time to revisit how they’re judged. In the same vein, it’s time to hold traditional billboards under the microscope too. Could you find greater interactivity in an airport billboard, billboard on an subway station platform (here in Chicago, I’d say we have a good 5 minutes standing next to the message of choice while waiting for a CTA train) or on the train/bus itself where people spend even more time. And beyond placement, are there texting options, QR codes or other immediate response devices that make that ad go farther?

That’s the funny thing about the new media choices. We’re so focused on adding entire new channels, we forget that the old ones we’ve known still have potential use in the right situation. As long as we know which metric to look at and understand it’s not always about the click.

Why Trader Joe’s beats your grocery store brand

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As many of us in Chicagoland who grew up in primarily a Jewel and Dominick’s world, it’s easy for me to have comfort with both of these grocery store brand names. Yet, I’m ready to step outside of that comfort zone thanks to what Trader Joe’s has brought to the table. And I’m not just talking about food.

I’m a big proponent of building the brand from within – not with only terrific products/services, but a culture that is aligned with that brand and in turn results in better customer experiences.

Joe’s nails this.

The store oozes an unparalleled happiness from the moment you walk through the door. Here are people over a wide range of ages who seem to be genuinely enjoying working in their environment and helping people. The walls are bright and painted with several mantras (“Great wine shouldn’t mean expensive wine”) as if they were coming from the founder himself. As part of a promotion, we walked out with a brightly colored Trader Joe’s bag that we’ll not only be able to re-use over and over again, but a walking advertisement to be seen all over the neighborhood (further building credibility). Some employees have Hawaiian print shirts, others have colorful and fun t-shirts. At least 3 of them asked me if I needed help finding what I was looking for. The kicker for me is an extensively written newsletter that goes into rich detail about the featured products – contrast this with the typical flyer that just shows pictures of food and pricing.

Yes, perhaps you could get something close to this kind of experience at another store. But do you? Every time you walk through the door? Is it even clean half the time?

I realize some of the elements of service described above are the “sizzle.” The “steak” is the product itself – you fully expect the stuff to be overpriced across the board as gourmet items often are. But surprisingly, these items are reasonably priced and a good value for the quality in return. Heck, I don’t mind saying that sometimes you don’t mind putting a $3 bottle of Charles Shaw in your bag – in times like these, you just feel smarter for getting decent quality. And where it seems most stores are almost embarrassed to have a wine like that on the shelf, Joe’s puts it out in the open, in the center of the aisle, with the price boldly seen.

I know, I know. I sound like a paid spokesperson – trust me, I’m not on the payroll. My point is this: Think about how the Trader Joe’s culture template can be adapted to work for your company. And just because this is a business-to-consumer audience, don’t mistake this for thinking that you can’t make it work for professional services either.

Start with your product/service – is it of exceptional quality? Let’s say that it is. Think about what you believe in relation to what you’re delivering and why you do it better than anyone else. Knowing this: How do you wrap that identity around your environment? Are there colors on the wall that speak to your creativity or brand identity? How do your people answer the phone? Are there mantras that everybody can say by heart? If I talked to 10 of your clients, would they say the same kind of praise about you – and are you absolutely certain of that? Are you giving them outlets to provide feedback to you in multiple ways? If there were/are more than one location of your business, how easy is this to replicate?

Some dismiss these other elements beyond the product or service itself as just “nice to haves” rather than something being so essential to the brand. Maybe that’s why they provide a good service, but there’s still something missing that keeps them from being a great culture and as a result, a great brand.

For example, do you feel a disconnect between departments? Are there people who think their department is the heart and soul of the company rather than part of the team? This is akin to people in one department of the grocery store dressing differently than the others and providing a different level of service that’s inconsistent with the other departments. That’s not a different department – that’s pretty much a different company within the company. And that you don’t need when you’re trying to convey a united front.

An environment like Trader Joe’s doesn’t happen overnight. But when you start with a vision and brand strategy that operations later aligns with, you begin to have the makings of a brand that feels real. Genuine. With loyal employees who don’t need special incentives to be great ambassadors on your behalf.

This isn’t a mere theory. There’s a whole lot of people living and breathing it – see for yourself. On Diversey and probably just about every other Trader Joe’s location in the country.

Does Wal-Mart belong in any city neighborhood, really?

As I write this post, I’m looking outside a window staring at the main battlefront of the Lakeview neighborhood. You see, if Wal-Mart is able to open its proposed Wal-Mart Marketplace grocery store here, I will literally be its neighbor. So as you can imagine, from a personal standpoint, I am not in favor of the potential increase in traffic that could be brought to my doorstep.

However, strategically speaking from a brand standpoint, Wal-Mart doesn’t really belong here either. By virtue of the ground it has already tilled and the kind of customers it has already catered to, it doesn’t belong in Lakeview, Lincoln Park or any city neighborhood. Even a little boutique offshoot of Wal-Mart is still essentially Wal-Mart too. Let’s be real.

To be clear, I don’t have anything against Wal-Mart as a business (although many others do). But you can’t say you’re a wolf and pretend to walk among the lambs. Wal-Mart as a brand has been, is and will always be first and foremost a big box retailer made for suburbanites.

Some will say, “Yes, but what’s the harm? Lakeview already has big name brands like The Gap, Marshall’s, T.J. Maxx…”

Yes, they do. But there is a difference between name brands that occupy a suitable space within a neighborhood cleanly and big box retailers that threaten to alter the landscape in such a way that its impact for the better is questioned. I hardly think there was a big uproar over The Gap coming into the neighborhood. It is not a big box retailer.

Landlords aren’t without blame too.
Some are painting a picture of an already thriving neighborhood but that’s only partially true. Independent businesses have left the neighborhood long before the current debate. Adding Wal-Mart may not help the climate of the small business, but when businesses are shutting down on main streets such as Broadway or Clark without being replaced, you have to take a harder look at the role of property landlords in changing a neighborhood. Could commercial real estate rents be contributing to a skew toward larger businesses coming into the neighborhood – because those are the ones who can actually pay those higher rents?

If that’s the case, perhaps Wal-Mart is not the only “enemy” Lakeview needs to be concerned with.

Two brands can solve everything. If they dare.
Dominick’s and Jewel are local brands that have been in our mindset since we were born. They’re from here. We know them. They know us. They belong locally in both the burbs and the city neighborhoods. They are Chicago. And they fulfill an “everyday” grocery store need that is sorely lacking among a wonderland of expensive gourmet food stores and dingy, limited markets. Dominick’s could’ve plugged this gaping hole by rebuilding its burned down store on Broadway, but that saga has dragged out longer than one can possibly believe. So perhaps it’s left to our friends at Jewel. But they would have less of an incentive to occupy the space since many are driving north now to their location because…the Dominick’s burned down.

All of this is not without precedent. We’ve had big boxes come in before. And I questioned how much they belong too. For example, I’m not sure a Home Depot was the best fit for Lincoln Park not merely because of logistics but because I don’t think their brand needed to be here. Revenue could be had in many a thriving Chicagoland suburb. And we’d keep going to our friendly Ace Hardware man (which we do).

But we’ve never had a big box retailer potentially come in at a place with such visibility. So while I wish Wal-Mart the best, as the brand strategist it’s never hired I would advise it to steer clear of the firestorm of attention in Lakeview it doesn’t need. It’s actually done too good of a job in establishing an identity for itself with a proven concept – it’s just that that concept needs to match the right location to thrive to the fullest.

So remember: Don’t underestimate the importance of location in establishing your brand. What match does the neighborhood have in terms of your target audience’s profile and spending habits? Can many of your true competitors be found here? Do you see potential for a demographic shift to occur that may change that landscape one way or another in the next few years?

If you’re not careful, you may find your own version of trying to fit your Wal-Mart into a Lakeview. And having a Wal-Mart in Lakeview makes about as much sense as a Costco in the middle of Michigan Avenue.

Last note: If you’d like to oppose Wal-Mart coming into Lakeview, there’s a Facebook Group set up for it here nearing 800 members – https://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_159449284099168&notif_t=group_r2j

Branding lesson from Mr. Sheen: You can bring them to the table, but they’ve still got to eat.

For all the praise heaped upon Charlie Sheen for his social media prowess, I think there’s an element that seems to be forgotten about – when his popularity skyrocketed thanks to social media, Charlie forgot what to do when his invited guests got to the party. Namely, he forgot to put actual work and structure into the main event of his show. Yes, Charlie, people gladly paid to have a ticket. But once they got in the door, they weren’t going to be satisfied to just hear you ramble about “tiger blood” and “winning.” You had to have some organizational resemblance of, well, a show.

After bombing horribly in Detroit, the best reviews coming out of his Chicago show related to the fact that…he didn’t implode?

I guess that’s a big deal considering who we’re talking about, but that’s not exactly saying he brought the house down either (full disclosure – I didn’t attend but certainly got enough of the picture from others who did and news sources).

The lesson we can take away from this is that social media can be intensely powerful in attracting people to your brand but once they get there, you have to give them a reason to stay. The content and communication has to be continuously worthwhile and rewarding.

To that end, are you merely selling on your website or blog? That’s kind of the equivalent of Sheen’s Detroit show – a gigantic disappointment not long after the fans arrived. Or are you sharing information related to your industry that’s helpful so they’ll look forward to receiving it via an RSS feed? If Sheen had done such a wonderful job in Chicago that fans would be raving about it to others and telling their friends in other cities that they couldn’t miss seeing him on stage in their own town…this would be more of the equivalent result.

Which show would you rather put on for your would-be fans?

Put the work into your website. Your blog. Your customer service. The people who could interface with your customers potentially, which is pretty much everybody. Because once the Facebooks, Twitters and LinkedIns of the world help attract people to your doorstep, that’s not the time to proclaim yourself as a guru.

That’s just the beginning.