January ’23
Campaign Expansion Proposal Prepared by Joshua Kleinberg joshuakleinberg@me.com (330) 354-1458
Contents Overview
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Touchpoints Landing Page Agent Emails Dashcam Unboxing Agent Newsletter Blurb Employee Newsletter Blurb Instagram
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The Art of the Possible
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Conclusion
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A Brief Note: In some instances different terminology is used for section titles in this brief than was used in the original assignment. The original text of the assignments is included in boxes like this one.
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Overview Cover Whale’s Driver Safety Program is a core element of its business model. The program ties policyholder coverage to advanced telematics and near real-time driver coaching to correct unsafe behaviors, as well as reinforce safe driving habits.
New telematics partnerships offer an opportunity for Cover Whale to reinforce Program benefits, as well as to build further awareness and understanding of the Program among both agents and new policyholders. To do this, Cover Whale should execute a communications campaign around the Program expansion.
About the Company
Cover Whale, an insurtech founded by experienced insurance and technology veterans, focuses on technology, underwriting, and data to launch innovative insurance programs.
Cover Whale delivers the industry’s most agent-friendly online quoting experience to more than 5,000 agents so they can deliver fast, easy coverage for their clients. Maintaining excellent agent relationships has driven more than $325 million in active premium through the Cover Whale platform.
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Problem Many truck drivers have an aversion to installing dash cams, mostly due to privacy concerns, as over-the-road drivers both work and live in their vehicles while on the road. Some drivers, despite the significant benefit of lowering their insurance rates over time, won’t insure with Cover Whale because of our dash cam requirement.
Persona Truck drivers align most closely with the Makers Values-Attitudes-Lifestyles segment. According to Strategic Business Insights, members of this group typically • are motivated by self-expression • are distrustful of government • have a strong interest in all things automotive • have strong outdoor interests • want to protect what they perceive to be theirs • see themselves as straightforward
Predicament How can we overcome truck drivers’ aversion to installing dash cams? We have to speak to them in a straightforward manner about how telematics help them protect their livelihood, their health and their investment while credibly assuring them we value their right to self-expression.
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Problem Cover Whale currently provides coverage exclusively through a network of 5,000 insurance agents who, like their clients, often see the dash cam requirement as a blocker to closing business, creating resistance to their consideration of Cover Whale.
Persona Insurance agents typically align with the Achievers Values-Attitudes-Lifestyles segment. According to Strategic Business Insights, members of this group typically • are motivated by success • believe money is the source of authority • are committed to family and job • are fully scheduled • are hardworking • are moderate • are professional • value technology that provides a productivity boost
Predicament How do we ease insurance agents’ concerns about a requirement they may consider a roadblock to doing business? We must professionally and humanely communicate a productivity-boosting menu of tactics and technologies for successfully closing sales.
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Pieces Assignment: Briefly outline the components of a communications campaign around the Driver Safety Program expansion that targets both agents and new policyholders. •
Landing Page While the current landing page is appropriately informative, with a FAQ section and some brief explainers on the Driver Safety Program, it may give readers an inconsistent message about who it’s talking to. The hero copy is addressed to truck drivers, while the call-to-action beneath it is directed at insurance agents. The text of the copy addressing drivers appropriately focuses on their interest in “protecting [their] livelihood,” but some of it may read a little aggressively (“those who choose to be reckless”). It can be difficult to thread the needle between speaking straightforwardly to a customer and creating a negative association with the brand’s voice. The goal here will be to create a consistent message targeting only one audience: the driver of the program’s title.
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Agent Emails Growing from our need to professionally and humanely communicate a productivity-boosting menu of tactics and technologies for successfully closing sales, these should be centered around what we’re offering agents to help them sign up more drivers.
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Dashcam Unboxing In addition to using this touchpoint as an opportunity to prove our commitment to ease-of-use and efficiency, this is an excellent chance to create a surprising and delightful experience for the driver.
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Agent Newsletter Blurb
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The copy here should reinforce tangible, productivity-boosting offerings Cover Whale is creating for their agent representatives and assure them that the offerings are there to help them close business. •
Employee Newsletter Blurb This copy should emphasize the “surprise and delight” aspect of the campaign, making employees feel that they are part of a company that legitimately cares about their customers and engendering the sort of “fierce loyalty” that’s bred when an organization exhibits “deep empathy” (to quote Cover Whale Chief Experience Officer Saira Taneja). A video showing the tangible benefits of the campaign (e.g. an unboxing or a quick explainer of all the different fronts the campaign is hitting on) may help employees visualize what specifically is new about this campaign and why it’s such a cool and exciting offering.
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Social Media Cover Whale uses Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook, with the latter two functioning more for the sake of worker communication than client communication. The most apparent opportunity here is to consider adding a Twitter account. Another good option might be to start a YouTube channel that could serve as a clearing house for customer and agent communications: Cover Whale has leveraged YouTube partnerships effectively to date, but a branded YouTube hub could further this goal. Other possibilities include a Pinterest account (excellent for targeted website traffic and organic backlinks for SEO), Dribbble (design-oriented community for creatives that might leverage and continue to grow the brand’s advanced design package), and many others. It may be worth generating a report on how new social media forays could benefit Cover Whale and whether they would be worth the attention each would take. While a resource-intensive emphasis on social media is unlikely to be a good allocation of Cover Whale’s attention, there may be lean options here whose benefits dramatically outweigh the required efforts. o Instagram
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A review of Cover Whale’s account shows a fairly conservative presence. Nothing wrong with this, but if any of the current social media channels allow for a bit more creativity and fun, it is likely Instagram. This may be the best place to target drivers as opposed to insurance agents—though both audiences could come into play here. Cover Whale’s best performing Instagram posts appear to be charts and graphs (i.e. hard figures). Leaning into this fact makes sense, but it might also be wise to mix it up with some more playful posts. What many Instagram users don’t realize is that the caption is the far more illustrious opportunity for client communication. Even simple messages with a bold statement can go viral without an enormous emphasis on the image (except insofar as it boldly states a claim). An industry-wide review shows that Save the Dates (especially for executive-led discussions) as well as behind-the-scenes images from industry conferences and the company’s operations tend to perform well and give the impression that Cover Whale is an active player in its field. Instagram posts can also be used to funnel audience members to other communications. For instance, when an executive makes an appearance on an industry YouTube show, a brief thank you note on Instagram can lead followers to the discussion. As it relates to the Driver Safety Program, Instagram can be used to reinforce program benefits while humorously and credibly reassuring drivers we value their right to self-expression and assuaging any friction the dash cam requirement might create.
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Putting Together a Solution Assignment: Write a short campaign intent statement from which the campaign messaging tactics flow. When considering campaign tactical components, feel free to explore the “art of the possible.”
The intent of this campaign expansion will be to reinforce the Driver Safety Program’s benefits and build further awareness and understanding of the Program among both agents and new policyholders. Because we’re engaging two audiences on separate fronts we will deploy two strategic sub-plans: speaking to drivers in a straightforward manner about how telematics help them protect their livelihood, their health and their investment while credibly assuring them we value their right to self-expression; and professionally and humanely communicating to insurance agents a productivity-boosting menu of tactics and technologies for successfully closing sales of Cover Whale insurance products.
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Touchpoint
Landing Page Assignment: Draft copy for a campaign landing page. Suggest some content elements that could be developed and employed on the page. First, let’s take a look at the current landing page . . .
What it’s doing right •
Appropriately informative, with an exhaustive, togglable FAQ section.
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The text of the copy addressing drivers appropriately focuses on their interest in “protecting [their] livelihood,” an important concern for the Maker VALS segment.
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Where it could improve
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The page’s copy is addressed to truck drivers, while the call-to-action beneath the hero text is directed at insurance agents, which may give an inconsistent message about who is being addressed. It seems that appointing insurance agents is the main goal of the website, but this may be one sub-page where it’s worth offering a Call-to-Action for drivers, for example: “Find an Agent now.” If desired, a de-emphasized Call-to-Action for agents might be worth including (e.g. in place of “Already appointed? Login” a message like “Agent? Get appointed or login”).
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The stock photography in the hero image has some brand consistency but is different from the SVG illustrations on the site’s other subpages. Because this is a special campaign page, this can work, but the image should address the target audience and reinforce the value proposition.
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Some text may read a little aggressively (“those who choose to be reckless,” “you are at risk of having your insurance canceled”). It can be difficult to thread the needle between speaking straightforwardly to a customer and creating a negative association with the brand’s voice.
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Where it could improve (continued) •
The three C’s and How it works sections work well independently but might be overkill on this single landing page. It might be worth simplifying these concepts here and including the How it works explanation on either a separate page or as an entry in the FAQ section.
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Content Element Proposal
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A hero image that makes it clear who is being addressed (drivers) and illustrates the value proposition of the Driver Safety Program as it relates to the target audience’s unique VALS motivations (helping them protect what is theirs, i.e. their earning potential). If the image can also reinforce the message of the hero text and get the audience thinking about additional protections the product offers, all the better (see sample photo, next page).
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The current page includes 3 straight sections with 3 elements each. Perhaps counterintuitively, this creates a slightly static feeling: just as editors suggest writers vary their sentence length, web designers should vary page elements to create a more dynamic reading experience.
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If possible, some hard numbers would likely be effective here. What is the average savings for those who switch to Cover Whale? How quickly are claims completed? What percent do accidents decrease as a result of Cover Whale’s coaching? These hard figures would be enormously useful here.
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Now, let’s look to another company with a similar offering for inspiration . . .
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What we can take away •
The offering is explained in a paragraph separate from the hero text, after the reader has digested the positive message of the offering’s value proposal (savings).
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The text of the campaign page is a bit more upbeat, with potential negative effects on the driver’s savings potential downplayed by appearing in a brief dependent clause prior to a benefit (the average savings) in the final sentence of the explanatory paragraph.
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A brief explainer video condenses all the necessary explanatory information into a single element.
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A 3-item sequential list helps the reader visualize the ease with which the offering can be accepted.
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A togglable text box explains the two different offerings, beginning with a quick sequential sentence reinforcing the ease of the program (“Sign up, plug in the device, and drive”).
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The rest of the page is reserved for benefits ($47 initial savings; $156 annual savings) or tips for getting the most out of the offering. All of this paints the picture of a company that is concerned with helping its customers.
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Copy Proposal •
Hero Text:
Most insurance fixes accidents. Ours prevents them. Cover Whale’s Driver Safety Program doesn’t just keep you on the road earning. It also keeps you safe. Because your truck has more than just cargo riding on it. FIND AN AGENT NOW Agent? Get appointed or login
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Section 2: Protecting your livelihood. That’s what we do. Cover Whale’s Driver Safety Program is all about keeping the roads safe for you and your cargo. By helping our customers avoid accidents and risk events, we keep them on time and exception-free— with some of the lowest insurance premiums in the industry.
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Section 3:
How does it work? Cameras
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Our dual-facing dash cams keep you protected from fraudulent claims against you, record any accidents and can even let you know how to improve your driving. Coaching Stay on top of your game with coaching tailored to your driving. Got a few too many hard brakes? We’ll let you know via text, email or a phone call so you can adjust your habits. Coverage Our Driver Safety Program allows us to offer some of the best coverage on the market at unbelievable discounts—because accidents can happen to even the best drivers. Want to learn more? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions
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Section 4:
75%
- Reduction in risk events after Cover Whale coaching
Cover Whale’s driver coaching helps you recognize and avoid the types of risky situations that can take you off the road—or worse. So you can head off accidents before they ever become an issue.
$125O
- Average Annual Savings with Cover Whale
More insight into driving behavior and greater visibility means more savings—a whole lot more savings, with the average Cover Whale customer cutting more than $1OO a month off their insurance premiums.
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Section 5:
Tips for keeping your premiums low with Cover Whale Stay on top of your speed Keep hard braking to a minimum Slow down for sharp turns Always wear a headset Be aware of your surroundings
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Section 6:
Ready to roll? Cover Whale can set you up with an agent instantly.
FIND AN AGENT NOW
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Touchpoint
Agent Emails Assignment: Draft three agent-targeted emails as part of the campaign. Consider the timing and cadence of the emails.
From: Cover Whale To: Ines Argento, Argento Insurance Services Subject: Your Guide to Closing More Sales Hi Ines, We asked agents like you how we could help them close more business and they told us loud and clear. Now we are proud to announce a new package of resources to help you get more drivers covered: • • •
Talking points to respond to common concerns with our Driver Safety Program Factsheets that detail our commitment to privacy A series of 2-minute explainer videos you can share with prospects Click here to view our brand new Agent Resource Center
As always, thank you for helping us protect America’s independent drivers and small trucking fleets. P.S. We’ve also put together this driver-facing database of agents that should send more curious drivers to your door. We hope it gives you some helpful leads!
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From: Cover Whale To: Tim Bellows, Bellows & McCaffrey Subject: Driver Safety Just Got a Whole Lot More Exciting Hi Tim, We’ve been hard at work looking for ways to improve our products, and we’ve got something exciting to share: a new-look Driver Safety Program with expanded dashcam offerings that mean more drivers can be covered with lower premiums. We’ve also redesigned our Safety Program home page to emphasize incentives, and we rebuilt the dash cam unboxing experience with some delightful surprises for our new drivers—because delighted drivers mean repeat business. Want to take a peek? And rest assured, it isn’t just our drivers who’ll see the new campaign’s benefits. We’ve also prepared a completely new Agent Resource Center with factsheets, talking points and explainer videos to help you close more sales—and we’ve put together a driverfacing database of our agents, which we hope will deliver more leads to your doorstep. It’s all a part of our commitment to becoming the leading commercial insurer for America’s independent truck drivers and small trucking fleets. Thank you for partnering with us, and if there’s anything else we can help you with, feel free to respond to this email. We’re always up for feedback.
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From: Cover Whale To: Bakari Cameron, InsureRight Subject: You’re a top agent! Claim your reward Hi Bakari, We wanted to congratulate you on being among our top 10% of agent representatives in 2022. We’ve made some changes to our Driver Safety Program, and we want to make sure they work for our top performers. Would you take a look at our campaign page and unboxing experience and let us know your thoughts here? To show our appreciation, we’d like to offer you a 10% premium on all new sign-ups for the rest of 2023. If you match last year’s totals, that’d be an extra %NUMBER! Thank you for partnering with us. We look forward to continuing our relationship with you.
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Touchpoint
Dashcam Unboxing Assignment: Consider the experience of a driver receiving their Cover Whale dash cam in the mail after they’ve secured coverage. Provide some ideas about how that experience might unfold for them. What elements would you include in the experience, both online and physical? By now, nearly everyone is familiar with the unboxing experience of the iPhone and other Apple products. Tightly packaged boxes of reinforced cardboard that come undone with a satisfying thwock, pieces nestled firmly into precision-cut grooves, instruction manuals with meticulously rounded edges nestled neatly into folders with identical rounds. It’s a delightful experience that elevated product unboxing to an artform. Because of Cover Whale’s trio of camera technologies—all of which presumably come with their own product-specific packaging—something that tailored is unlikely to be possible, but that’s okay. Because insurance is often thought to be a prosaic product, any degree of artfulness in the unboxing experience is likely to be appreciated more greatly and turn customers into superfans. For packaging inspiration, I looked to the mail-order impression kit offered by Byte, an orthodontics company. They include a branded outer box that closes with magnets (creating a similar satisfying thwock to the iPhone’s—without the need for costly precision machining), as well as a branded metallic folder with a welcome message and instructions—facilitated by QR code.
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Inspiration
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A solution like Byte’s could be employed by Cover Whale by placing the dash cameras, in their original packaging, inside high-quality purpose-made Cover Whale-branded boxes, alongside a beautifully printed welcome folder with instructions, including a single-page card with a QR code that simplifies the process as well as a separate quickstart guide for those who prefer paper instructions. The QR code can open a webpage or can be used to open up an instruction set in the Cover Whale app. Augmented Reality could be deployed within the app to show the driver or fleet owner where on their dashboard the camera should be placed, and how to position it. Some copy ideas for the various segments: •
Outer Box copy:
Your lower premiums have arrived. •
Outer Folder copy:
Don’t worry about a thing. We’ve got you covered. •
Instruction Sheet copy:
Welcome to Cover Whale. We’ll take it from here. Just open your camera app. Scan the QR code → And we’ll show you where to place your new dash cam. . . . then it’s smoooooth sailing.
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. . . and something else Because insurance has so few customer touchpoints, we should make this product unboxing as special as we can, taking the opportunity to surprise and delight our new drivers. One way we can do that? Company swag—but not just any old pen or keychain: a product that’s useful and well-liked by truck drivers, that’s sold at every truck stop in the country, that has a very small packaging footprint, does not cost an exorbitant amount, and which will not only help us reinforce our message as a provider of protection but will inevitably come in handy during any period where a driver is in harm’s way, from roadside stops to after-dark refuels, and everything in between.
Introducing the Cover Whale Hi-Viz Vest
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Touchpoint
Agent Newsletter Blurb Assignment: Draft a 50-75 word paragraph for inclusion in Cover Whale’s monthly agent newsletter. Cover Whale’s Driver Safety Program Gets a New Look, New Agent Resources We asked our agents how we could help them close more business and they told us loud and clear. Now we are proud to announce a new package of resources to help you get more drivers covered: • • •
Talking points to respond to common concerns with our Driver Safety Program A new driver-facing agent database to lead new prospects to your door A series of 2-minute explainer videos to share with prospects
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Touchpoint
Employee Newsletter Blurb Assignment: Draft a 50-75 word paragraph for inclusion in Cover Whale’s employee newsletter. New-Look Driver Safety Campaign Aims to “Surprise and Delight” New Customers Alongside our recent expansion of the Driver Safety Program, Cover Whale is proud to introduce a new campaign devoted to reducing friction for new customers, and to surprising and delighting them once they’re signed up with a more thoughtful unboxing experience, a new campaign landing page and even new and exciting driver-focused swag. It’s all part of Cover Whale’s commitment to becoming the leading commercial insurer for America’s independent truck drivers and small trucking fleets.
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Touchpoint
Instagram Assignment: Draft social media posts as part of the campaign.
Caption: It’s your captain’s chair, your phone booth, your home-away-from-home. If you can’t be comfortable there, where can you? That’s why Cover Whale’s Driver Safety dash cam experience was built with driver privacy in mind. To learn more about how Cover Whale protects your privacy, visit the link in our profile.
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Touchpoint
Instagram Assignment: Draft social media posts as part of the campaign.
Caption: 30%. It’s a big deal. That’s why we make it our savings benchmark on every new Cover Whale account. Thinking about switching? Visit coverwhale.com
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The Art of the Possible Assignment: When considering campaign tactical components, feel free to explore “the art of the possible.” •
A database of agents offering Cover Whale Insurance Solutions so that the previously mentioned “Find an agent now” call-to-action can be employed for drivers curious about the offering. A later possibility here could involve algorithmically directing drivers to nearby agents who are particularly adept at closing sales for Cover Whale.
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The most apparent social media opportunity is to consider adding a Twitter account. Other possibilities include a Pinterest account (excellent for targeted website traffic and organic backlinks for SEO), Dribbble (design-oriented community for creatives that might leverage and continue to grow the brand’s advanced design package), and others. It may be worth generating a report on how new social media forays could benefit Cover Whale and whether they would be worth the attention each would take. While a resource-intensive emphasis on social media is unlikely to be a good solution for Cover Whale, there may be lean options here whose benefits dramatically outweigh the required efforts.
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Cover Whale has had some great press success in the insurance industry trades as well as some broad-focus supply chain media. Trucking industry magazines may represent an opportunity. While Land Line Magazine is owned by OOIDA, who offers a truck insurance product and therefore may be hostile to coverage of Cover Whale, magazines such as Overdrive, American Trucker, Fleet Owner, 104, Road King and Trucker’s Connection might all be amenable to coverage of or advertising partnerships with Cover Whale.
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Because Maker VALS types value self-expression, a campaign demonstrating truck drivers’ unique expressions of personality by way of their cab configurations might represent an opportunity. Imagine a series of shots from between the seats of differently decorated dashboards—a shimmying hula girl and a lei wrapping the mirror; a rosary and a rabbit’s foot; family photos taped to glove boxes; pink fur trim around the steering wheel; a cowboy hat; a turban; dashes from all makes and models of eighteen-wheeler—and the one constant from shot to shot? A Cover Whale dash cam, keeping the unseen drivers protected.
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Conclusion Cover Whale’s Driver Safety Program is a compelling product deploying cutting-edge technology to make insuring commercial truck fleets safer and more cost-effective. The campaign explaining this product’s expansion should make use of cutting-edge solutions and engage both the truck driver and insurance agents in a manner that credibly assures each constituency of Cover Whale’s devotion to them and their goals. By email, social media, web landing page, newsletter outreach and the product unboxing experience, we can reinforce the Driver Safety Program’s benefits and Cover Whale’s devotion to protection, efficiency and cost-effectiveness while helping ease our customers’ and representatives concerns. All it takes is some well-considered initiatives—and some great copywriting.
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