Last month health insurance company Cigna launched a $25-million rebranding campaign, with the goal of "evolving health and well-being needs of consumers," according to its press release. The fact that it used the word "consumers" is evolution in and of itself.
A new logo, advertising campaign, mobile apps, social media program and customer-focused changes to its service organization are all part of the plan. Even the formal, capital-letter "CIGNA" was replaced with the softer "Cigna" spelling in company documents.
Cigna's move represents a sea change in the health insurance industry as a whole.
Insurers traditionally considered employers and doctors as their customers, with end-user consumers (members) further down on the priority list. In many cases, consumers had no input in their health insurance decisions and only interacted with their insurer regarding billing matters.
But as the 2014 deadline for healthcare reform inches closer, brand becomes an important new battleground for health insurers. They must prepare to compete in new ways and over greater numbers of consumers, who will play a more influential role in their health insurance decisions. An industry not used to competition at the consumer level will suddenly find lots of it.
Health insurers seeking to compete and win in this new world must quickly understand and address a critical topic that has long been given little attention in the industry - branding. For many companies in consumer-driven industries, brand is a primary focus. Coca-Cola or Proctor & Gamble, for example, have defined the discipline known as brand management and trained generations of marketers in the practice. Health insurers that are just now starting to wrestle with the topic must start with three key questions:
- What customer insights do I need in order to make brand decisions?
- What is a brand strategy and how do I develop one?
- How do I prepare my organization to deliver on the promises made by my brand?
Understanding the customer, and especially that new breed called the consumer, means understanding why they make the healthcare choices that they make, how they make their healthcare decisions, and what expectations they have of their health insurer. What are consumers' top of mind ideas about health? Do they care about merely the physiology of medicine, or is it about connecting in a mental, spiritual, or even financial way as well? How do individuals define and perceive "health?"
Cigna, for example, has been on a multi-year journey to better understand its customer needs. Customer Experience Officer Ingrid Lindberg has been featured in many articles by Peppers & Rogers Group discussing her organization's structural changes and commitment to acting on customer insight. In 2009 she and her team built a physical "experience room" at the company's Connecticut headquarters, where 6,000 employees walked through 10 stations representing steps of the customer experience, including enrollment, identification cards, documents in "legalese," billing, and more. "Our job is to make the customer the center of Cigna's universe," she said of the program.
A health insurer's brand strategy must be designed based on this sort of insight, addressing multiple internal and external factors. By deciding which customer needs to focus on, the insurer can create a value proposition around those customer segments and needs. Differentiation in the brand strategy from competitors is also key. Right now most consumers don't distinguish one insurer from another. Insurers haven't had to make that distinction on the consumer level. Now, insurers must position themselves in a way that makes them unique, and set up brand guidelines for all customer touchpoints that ensure the organization consistently applies the brand. These guidelines will provide the foundation for delivering on the brand promise.
As with branding initiatives in any industry, the talk must be backed up by action. Execution of a solid brand strategy requires that insurers understand the capabilities required to deliver the foundational product and service experience to all customers, as well as how to deliver a differentiated customer experience to relevant customer segments.
Activity around all three branding dimensions is critical. Real impact requires a clear understanding of your customer (and potential customer) base, a brand strategy aligned and supportive of the overall corporate strategy, and new and improved capabilities needed to deliver on the brand promise. Then companies will be best positioned to succeed in the coming competition for the heart, mind and health of the "new" healthcare consumer.
Future blog posts will explore each of these three elements in more depth. And for good reason: time is of the essence. When it comes to branding in the healthcare space, there's a lot of work to do.
About the author: Marc Ruggiano is a partner with Peppers & Rogers Group. Contact him at marc.ruggiano@peppersandrogersgroup.com