Building for scale and impact.
Challenge: When I joined Berxi, the brand faced multiple creative challenges. With an expanded product offering and a more complex full-funnel marketing strategy, we needed to scale our messaging while maintaining brand consistency across niche audiences. Our small budget and limited resources added further complexity, especially in supporting the high-volume demands of programmatic advertising.
Creative Strategy & Execution:
● Full-Funnel Messaging: I developed a comprehensive messaging strategy tailored to each stage of the funnel, ensuring we communicated Berxi’s value proposition effectively at every touchpoint. This allowed us to engage prospects at various stages of the customer journey, from awareness to conversion.
● Increased Creative Output & Flexibility: To meet the fast-paced demands of programmatic advertising, I established a creative ecosystem that integrated in-house talent, agencies, and contractors. This streamlined our ability to scale creative production while maintaining quality and speed. I also advocated for new ad formats that told better stories and conveyed more information within limited ad space, implemented across digital and traditional channels.
● Innovative Use of Media & Space: I pushed the boundaries of existing media, reimagining how to maximize ad space in unexpected ways. For example, we used envelopes in direct mail campaigns as additional creative real estate and embedded ad messaging in editorial content to blend seamlessly with readers’ experiences.
● Efficient Creative Repurposing: With a small budget and niche audiences, I found innovative ways to repurpose creative assets across different segments. This improved production efficiency and allowed us to stretch resources while ensuring our messaging resonated with a broader audience.
Brand Strategy:
● Core Messaging Workshops: I led internal workshops and partnered with agencies to conduct in-depth market research and competitive analysis. This research provided both qualitative and quantitative insights that helped us refine Berxi’s core messaging and flex the brand as we launched new products and expanded to new customer segments.
● Message Testing Campaign: Working closely with the leadership team, we developed and tested core messages through a series of campaigns. This enabled us to validate our assumptions, optimize our messaging, and ensure it resonated across different markets.
Impact: These strategic initiatives not only improved Berxi’s creative output and efficiency but also reinforced brand consistency across touchpoints. By leaning into innovative ad formats and optimizing our messaging, we positioned Berxi as a stronger competitor in the market, reaching new audiences and driving conversions.
Strategy: Using Cognitive Biases
One of Berxi's biggest challenges as a relatively new player in the professional and small business insurance marketplace was in building trust with its prospective audience. Additionally, selling direct-to-customers (D2C) instead of relying on brokers was a new way for these customers to purchase commercial insurance.
One of the core elements of the creative strategy I developed included using cognitive biases, including Social Proof, Authority Bias, Framing Effect, and Anchoring Bias, to help reinforce aspects of the brand positioning and messaging throughout the brand experience. Because you can't just say "trust Berxi," how each element builds the perception of trust is vital to an effective strategy.
Authority Bias. Build trust by leveraging high ratings on all touch points from direct mail and the website to collateral and advertising. The A++ (Superior) rating from AM Best, a recognized and credible source, showcases Berxi's financial stability, making people more likely to trust the business because they defer to perceived authority. And only one other competitor could use this, and that's because they're a sister Berkshire Hathaway company.
Social Proof. Building trust through testimonials and customer ratings across all touch points in the brand experience including email, direct mail, advertising, websites, and organic social media.
Framing Effect & Anchoring Bias. By strategically organizing policy and service information in a comparison chart, we were able to subtly guide customers toward a decision. Used across all channels from collateral used at trade shows to the website and direct mail to social media, we made it easy to compare Berxi to the competition in a commodity category.