Senior Writer Derek Smith and Art Director Derek Adams share an example of how Science + Story come together to develop marketing strategies for our client, IACT Medical Trust.
Learn how to reach the right audience with the right message and how to integrate your brand essence across multiple channels in Part II of this Tactical Thursday series.
Transcript
Derek Adams: Hello, and welcome to Tactical Thursday. I’m Derek Adams, an art director here at Element Three.
Derek Smith: And I’m Derek Smith, a senior writer here at E3. Today we’re going to discuss how we executed a multi-channel marketing campaign for the IACT Medical Trust, the health insurance component of the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns, an organization that advocates for municipalities across the state.
Adams: In our brand research process, we learned all about the Indiana municipal health insurance environment. We heard about the pain points that communities are experiencing when it comes to healthcare, the obstacles like local politics that the Trust faces and why the Trust is a responsible choice for communities focused on long-term stability. That helped us to identify the Trust’s brand essence as “The Right Thing to Do.”
Smith: So let’s look at how we executed this marketing message, starting with a new Trust website. They had an existing website and we used that as a starting point. The high-level structure of the website didn’t change a whole lot; what did change was a more personal messaging and look. The old website was all about the Trust: tons of details about the plans it offered, common questions about insurance pools and the like. It was all very impersonal.
We changed the messaging to convey that the Trust understands your pain points and can share best practices because it understands how communities across the state are dealing with healthcare challenges. We developed a new tagline: “Your partner for municipal health,” as well as a consistent message that we can deliver across channels: “We know Indiana. We know healthcare.”
Adams: As we updated the messaging, we updated the logo and overall look and feel of all Trust communications. In the logo, we symbolize the concept of both cities and towns coming together for a common cause. Also, we selected imagery that embodied the Trust’s values and brand essence.
Smith: Now let’s talk about some video storytelling that’s been really effective for the Trust. We knew from the very beginning that videos would really help us counter some people’s skepticism by conveying that the Trust is a legitimate and solid alternative to traditional one-year health insurance agreements.
Adams: We partnered with a local video company called Cantaloupe to record some videos in Lafayette and Valparaiso – two communities where the Trust had made a big difference.
Smith: We spent a good deal of time planning the videos and making sure that Cantaloupe really understood the Trust’s brand. That understanding really paid off in terms of buzz and engagement when we released the videos.
Jon DiGregory, Cantaloupe: So when Cantaloupe was asked to come into the mix, we realized right away that this had to be very much an emotional play. We knew that their audience were folks that were used to doing things a certain way, really based on history. So the only thing that was really going to unlodge their thinking and get them thinking a new way was to approach it from a very emotional aspect.
That way, if we can create that emotional connection or that common ground between IACT and their audience, then all the details and the facts and figures were much more readily accepted after that. So establish the emotional connection first, which would then allow them to be able to talk about the facts behind why going to this new approach was a much better way of going.
Adams: That first set of videos was so successful that we’re getting ready to shoot another set as we continue to build the Trust’s library of video assets.
Smith: Thanks for tuning into this week’s edition of Tactical Thursday. We’ll see you next time.
Adams: Auf wiedersehen.
