Cariten's employee group health coverage was losing money and
customers. Existing groups weren't renewing, new groups weren't
signing up and brokers were no longer comfortable selling Cariten
plans. Word on the street was that the company was about to go out
of business.
A BrainPosse member developed a plan that turned everything around –
fast.
The first order of business was a marketing plan and
communications strategy. Some quick research pinpointed
the four key deciding factors for company decision
makers and influencers and the four (quite different)
key factors for brokers. The main concerns of members
were also identified, although they don't have a
significant voice in the choice of their company's
health plan.
No specific claim or theme could stretch to cover all of
the interests of all three groups. So the BrainPosse
member developed an umbrella theme that could cover all
areas, "Lean On Me," and bought rights to
Bill
Withers' 1972 hit to use in commercials.
The program began with a new television campaign.
Cariten had been running TV before the BrainPosse member
arrived on the scene, but the commercials were targeted
to individual members rather than decision
makers/influencers. They were also bland, and got just
7% recall despite an adequate media budget.
The new television's high profile and high production
values rocketed recall to 39% immediately, and did it
with 31% less media spending. Eventually the campaign
took recall to 47.8% with a small fraction of
competitors' media spending.
The campaign kicked off with a broker event at the
fanciest restaurant in Cariten's trade area.
A new TV campaign and a big broker bash sound expensive
for a company which many people thought was circling the
drain.That
was the whole idea.The first step to becoming successful was looking
successful.
In the next six years, the BrainPosse member created and
produced three TV campaigns, magazine ads and direct
mail targeted to company decision makers/influencers and
brokers, sales videos and presentations, an interactive
web strategy, and more.
The program helped Cariten turn a $14.7 million loss
into a $23.1 million profit.
