IDealogic® Brand Lab

OVERVIEW

Established in 1997, Houston-based ACCC Insurance Company is a leading provider of non-standard auto insurance. ACCC currently insures over 350,000 vehicles and is partnered with over 3,000 independent agents. At ACCC, non-standard auto does not mean sub-standard service. The company’s mission is to provide affordable auto insurance professionally, efficiently, and respectfully to responsible customers seeking to comply with mandatory insurance requirements.

Mission success is leading the non-standard insurance market, recognized as an important and appreciated member of the industry. The brand’s continued success is due to hardworking, career-minded individuals dedicated to providing the best product and customer service in the non-standard auto insurance market.

CHALLENGE

We partnered with ACCC to assist in the strategic development and implementation of the brand, and to establish the company’s position as an organization driven by values and the embodiment of ethics.

Since its inception, the ACCC brand was never formally developed. The lack of a clear brand identity and positioning, messaging, or channel strategy; user segmented website; brand reputation strategy; and overall marketing strategy led to deficiencies that, until developed and implemented, would continue to negatively impact performance and company growth. Our objective was to focus on the diagnosed pain points as well as to expose any other existing blind spots; and then implement creative, strategic solutions to resolve any such issues.

OUR STRATEGY

ACCC specifically selected to work with IDealogic® because of our holistic, scientific approach to company and lifestyle branding. We put specific focus on 1) strategically positioning the ACCC brand across all engagement points in order to build credibility and trust, and 2) significantly raising the brand’s perceived value so that it is taken seriously in the marketplace and recognized as an important and appreciated industry leader.

Brand Identity and Positioning

We created a complete brand identity to launch across ACCC’s entire framework and channels, all of which are designed to speak to each target demographic in order to build resonance and alignment with ACCC. All brand standards and assets were developed with identity and style continuity along with powerful brand messaging for every channel. The foundational mission, vision, and value genetics of ACCC were reinforced throughout the entire brand framework.

Channel Strategy

We strategically mapped out the key online and offline channels that needed to be developed and implemented in order to give the brand traction. This strategy ensures that all engagement points work together to garner specific, maximum results, and gives ACCC a consistent brand voice and presence within its community and to the people that matter.

Segmented User Experience Website

We strategically designed a custom, experience-driven website that is informative, modern, and responsive. This is one of the company’s most valuable assets to help form positive anchors in the minds of the target audience; educate the marketplace; and establish alignment, brand credibility, and trust.

Brand Reputation

“On the Wings Of” is an ongoing brand awareness campaign that extends throughout all external channels, engineered to reinforce company values, purpose, and alignment with existing and potential agents and policyholders. This branding initiative will allow ACCC to better recruit from its ideal audience segments and is designed to help extend and nurture the agent/policyholder life cycle.

Additionally, we brought the company’s highly recognized brand mascot, the green eagle, to life with this campaign. The campaign story with the eagle is depicted in several ways: showing only certain parts of the green eagle (i.e. wings), showing all or most of the green eagle with the wings outstretched, and showing people in the “freedom” pose, with people are prevalent in the foreground and the green eagle playing a smaller role in the background or to the side.

This campaign is incredibly versatile due to the fact that the ending word in the phrase “On the Wings Of” is designed to be interchanged based upon the target audience and desired messaging goals and/or requirements. The versatility of the phrase allows the brand to convey what the company is built on. It is a clever way to reinforce the stance the company takes and has unlimited potential for the brand’s future positioning. Additionally, the campaign can be used to pay tribute to the brand’s ongoing tradition of outreach and community work, as this has always been a consistent part of the company’s history.

We achieved four positioning objectives for this campaign:

Introduce the character brand and the relationship it has with both the Agent and Insured audiences
Promote ACCC’s name and brand image to establish a much greater presence in the market in a clever, memorable way
Overturn common perceptions that carry a negative implication through newly engineered messaging
Make implied and direct references to the brand as being the market leader

Bringing the Green Eagle to Life

One specific client ask was that the green eagle remain in the brand’s logo as we redesigned their corporate identity. Customers commonly refer to the brand as “the green eagle.” It is so closely tied to the brand that this visual element needed to play an important role in the brand’s identity. Aside from keeping the eagle as the brand’s icon, we went above and beyond by bringing the green eagle to life as ACCC’s character brand.

We executed this through a significant amount of 3D Modeling, Digital Compositing, Color Treatments, and Photo Editing. This also allowed us to give the client brand versatility according to the application of how the brand needs to tell its visual stories, and gives the client flexibility for future endeavors in video production and television commercials.

Bringing the Green Eagle to Life

Education in the Marketplace

We developed an educational program strategy that would serve to position the brand as the industry authority for general public, policyholders, agents, and claimants. It included specific goals for each audience segment, such as:

To educate the general public on the differences between standard and non-standard insurance
Direct policyholders on how to get the most out of their policies and know what to do in the case of an auto incident
Provide important information to agents in order to help them serve their insureds in the best way possible
Assist claimants on the next steps for moving forward in the claims process as well as to set their expectations for how that process works.

Brand Messaging

We developed appropriate brand messaging and declarations that integrated the brand’s story and educational program strategy in specific ways that speak to and align with each of the target audience segments. Because of their differences, each of these demographic groups respond to different types of brand promises and engagement approach.

We learned precisely how to engage them wherever they may be, and created messaging they want respond to, based upon their lifestyle. This messaging is designed to attract, engage, and assist each of the different segments in the non-standard auto insurance space, eliminate negativity surrounding the brand, and augment its position as an important and appreciated industry leader.

Brand Culture

We branded ACCC around the company’s purpose, values, belief structure, declarations, and vision. We fused and embodied the brand’s visual identity with the genetics of brand culture in order to attract the right kinds of people to the brand—people that want to adhere to ACCC’s culture because it aligns with their own inherent values and beliefs.

This is especially important in high-intensity and customer-facing departments, as these employees’ patience and skills are put to the test every day; being surrounded, empowered, and supported by a positive brand culture plays a huge factor in maintaining a positive mindset.

SCOPE OF WORK: B2B + B2C

COMPANY BRANDING

Brand Strategy
Brand Positioning
Brand Architecture
Corporate Identity Design
Brand IDentity Design
Brand Model® Development

WEBSITE DESIGN

Site Experience Strategy
Site Mapping UX
UI/UX Wire Frames
Site Prototyping
Website Design
Mobile + Responsive
Content Creation

COPYWRITING

Brand Messaging
Content Writing
Employee Communications
Corporate Communications
External Communications
Keyword Strategies

SALES STRATEGY

Sales Cycle Strategy
Mapping & Planning
Process Activation
Sales Collateral Design (Printed & Digital)
Presentation Design

VISUAL COMMUNICATIONS

Marketing Communications
Engagement Campaigns
Digital Design
Print Design
Corporate Collateral
Direct Response

SOCIAL MEDIA

Branding Platforms
Channel Strategy
Post Design & Layout
Content Creation

PHOTOGRAPHY

Custom Photo Shoots
Proprietary Images
Shoot Planning & Production
Photo Editing
Digital Imaging
3D Modeling
Custom Digital Compositing

INTERIOR BRAND DESIGN

Event Environment Concept Development
Trade-Show Design

STRATEGY & PLANNING

Marketing Strategy & Plan Development
Channel Strategy
Activation Strategy
Customer Engagement Strategy
Customer Journey Mapping
Digital Ecosystem Mapping
Messaging Strategy

ANALYSIS & R&D

Brand Audit & Analysis
Competitor Analysis
Market Insights Reporting
B2B & B2C Consumer Modeling
Buyer Persona Development
Consumer Segment Development
Customer Experience Analysis
KPI Development & Management

WORKSHOPS – BRAND LABS

Brand Positioning
Brand Messaging
Core Values
Brand Personality
Customer Experience

FROM THE CLIENT

“This team is amazing! Their development program and process tells you all you need to know about how good they are at what they do. Ron and Ruth understand that the first and most important task is to understand you and your business, your DNA. Then they have the talent necessary to take that knowledge and turn it into a brand that defines you and gives you that grand entrance, or re-entrance, into the marketplace!”

Jack I.

President

MARKET STATISTICS

• Over the next five years, the number of motor vehicle registrations is anticipated to increase at an annualized rate of 1.1% to 298.3 million.

• Liability insurance, which provides coverage for automobile-related injuries to others or damage to others’ property, accounts for the majority of the Commercial Auto Insurance industry’s revenue.

• The number of vehicle accidents is expected to gradually decline over the five years to 2024 as a result of technological safety improvements.

• The majority of commercial auto insurance policies are distributed through independent agents or brokers, which account for 68.6% of revenue for the Commercial Auto Insurance industry in 2019.

• Direct premiums written for U.S. nonstandard auto grew steadily from $12 billion in 2014 to $14.7 billion in 2017 and $15 billion in the first six months of 2018.