Cigna Corp. announced a new brand campaign Monday that unifies the company’s message to customers regardless of whether they are individual shoppers or have employer-based care, whether they live in the U.S., Turkey or China.
The company’s new tagline, “Together, all the way,” is markedly different from the company’s “Go You” campaign, which focused on individuals.
“One of the things that Cigna learned when it was testing all the messages outside the U.S. is that the idea of being together really resonates well outside the U.S,” company spokeswoman Gloria Barone said.
It’s not that “Go You” wasn’t successful — it was, Barone said. But a different message appeals to a global audience, she said.
As Cigna continues to grow outside the U.S., it has conducted marketing research that found that a message of rugged individualism does not resonate as well as the idea of being part of something: a family, a culture, a community, Barone said.
“So, the whole idea of somebody helping you, and working with you, was much more appealing to audiences outside the U.S.,” Barone said.
Additionally, the “Go You” message didn’t play particularly well with Medicare customers, a major part of Cigna’s business in the U.S., particularly since acquiring HealthSpring for $3.8 billion in January 2012.
In late 2013, the company started surveys and research to measure how people in various markets around the globe and in the U.S. perceive Cigna’s brand, said Stephen Cassell, Cigna’s vice president of Brand.
“At the same time, we also were seeing there was an opportunity from a global perspective to really step back and say, ‘We seem to have a lot of different messages out there.’ And a different is not necessarily wrong, but wouldn’t there be an interesting way, and a more efficient way, to kind of tie these together under one unifying platform,” Cassell said.
Cigna is advertising itself as a company whose mission is to improve health, well-being and a sense of security, Cassell said.
“We need people to know we can help them, that we’ve got their back,” he said.
Cigna has an annual global marketing budget of about $100 million, which is slightly more this year because of the new campaign. Cigna is advertising on television, in magazines, on websites, on billboards and bus stops.
In the U.S., Cigna’s campaign started Monday. In Bloomfield, the company showed two 60-second advertisements: one to be used in the U.S. and one to be used in China. The meeting was live-streamed to offices elsewhere in the U.S. and around the globe.
The company’s national advertising includes spots on cable networks such as USA, Discovery Channel, TBS, ESPN, HGTV, A&E and National Geographic, supplemented by regional television spots in several markets. It also features magazine ads in Women’s Health, Men’s Health, Sports Illustrated, Oprah and Shape.
Rounding out the campaign, Cigna will promote itself online on Facebook and Twitter, in radio advertisements in select markets, and with digital placements on NYTimes.com, the Wall Street Journal’s website, Hulu and others.
The new branding and marketing platform is not as sweeping in scale as the rebranding the company announced in September 2011. At that time, the company ditched a teal tree logo with CIGNA in all-capital letters that had been the company’s trademark since 1993 for a more relaxed font and a logo featuring a person standing with arms outstretched that also doubles as the trunk and branches of a tree.
At the time, Cigna was responding to changes in the way health insurance was sold. Instead of a business-to-business marketing campaign between an insurer and a benefits manager, who largely chose a company’s coverage options, Cigna focused on individuals. The change reflected the shift in health insurance, which has only become more pronounced: Federal health care reform opened up health exchanges as a marketplaces for individual health plans, and individuals are more involved than ever in deciding their insurer.
Date: September 08, 2014