I really like this series of Liberty Mutual Insurance TV commercials that’s been on the tube for a few years now. Have you seen any of these?

This is the thing that gets me about brand image. Even though it’s gotten much easier to skip TV ads, to relegate them to a smaller portion of your unconscious, there’s still some that slip through and make their mark on you.

Now here’s a little bit on the social context in which these ads are operating: Despite the rise of the Internet and the advent of social media, Americans have become increasingly disconnected from one another. There’s a great quote from an Ani Difranco performance piece back in the 90’s goes something like,

“Why don’t we build a wall between the houses and the highway, and you can go your way and I can go my way.”

However you feel about the sarcasm in this piece (Ani’s East Coast, after all), to me it pretty much describes a common characteristic of what passes for community life in a significant portion of the country.

That’s what makes the Liberty Mutual campaign (created by Hill Holiday, I believe) so heart string-pullingly attractive. It tells me that by being a Liberty Mutual customer, I will be tapping in to my best self and my best community, the one where everyone’s looking out for one other, wanting the best for each other, united in a sort of day-to-day practical love. Ahhhh, so nice. If you’ve ever lived in irascible, don’t-look-at-me old Boston, which is actually where Hill Holiday hails from, then you may understand the depth of yearning for this kind of a daily way to be.

Now to look at the Liberty Mutual campaign in the context of prevalent branding in the insurance industry, think State Farm for a minute. It’s pretty brilliant, the longstanding advertising appeal made by the insurance stalwart. It’s all there in their tagline: “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.” So State Farm creates a simile where they’re appealing to that America where everyone knows their neighbors and is looking out for one another. That’s our company. We’re like that one neighbor that was always checking up to make sure you were alright. Not like those other neighbors that didn’t give a crap if a bunch of strange guys were loading furniture OUT of your house.

But in the Liberty Mutual campaign, society itself has been transformed. It’s a way more ambitious approach. There’s no need for an overt appeal to a bygone American era of community. Instead, that vision of community is made real once again in the images of the ad. We see this community in motion, acting out its sense of comity and fairness – and Liberty Mutual is set up as a reflection of that loving community, the embodiment of it. What’s that old activist slogan? “Be the change you want to see in the world?” What is the Liberty Mutual campaign but that transformation of being? Sit back and think on it a minute. It’s pretty powerful stuff. I mean, they must be one heck of an insurance company, right?

And that’s the thing about really well executed brand image work. It’s powerful, evocative, and gets you where you live.

LOOK UNDER THE HOOD: BRAND IMAGE VERSUS BRAND EXPERIENCE

Here’s the rub of this little advertising utopia of heartfelt messaging. No amount of beautifully constructed brand images can ultimately determine a customer’s loyalty without a brand experience that matches what the image evokes. And woe to those who emphasize image at the expense of experience…or, for that matter, experience at the expense of image.

So I decided to fight back the warm and fuzzies and take advantage of a tool that most consumers out there have access to. Yeah, you know, like I’m talking about the Internet. I hit up a site that’s been around for a while and is generally respected, FreeAdvice.com – complete with surveys, comments, etc.

Here’s a little of what I found on Liberty Mutual’s actual brand experience, or at least a small swath of that experience. For the point I’m trying to make, it’s telling:

http://insurance.freeadvice.com/reviews/6/survey/Liberty+Mutual+Insurance/

Take some time to read some of the comments, which are instructive. The positive ones were few and far between. This one is pretty representative:

“Liberty Mutual finally gave me what was agreed upon in my policy only after a protracted series of phone calls and letters. Their handling of my claim demonstrated their interest in only their bottom line. One employee actually said something like, “I’m sorry we did so poorly in handling this claim. We can’t do anything to make up for the situation. We hope you will continue to insure with us.” He really said that.” (from August 07)

You can also tell a lot just by looking at the survey results. Seems that, according to this survey, the longer a customer was with Liberty Mutual, the less likely they were to be satisfied. When you consider that once you become the customer of a particular insurance company, it probably takes a few years until you actually file a claim, well then those rose-tinted extra special one-of-a-kind 3-D glasses start to slip down the bridge of your nose — exposing something a little more callous than that glorious community from the compelling LM TV campaign.

If you did a little research after every great ad campaign you saw, what would you discover? And would your discovery change your idea of what it might like to be a customer of the company doing the advertising?

Among other things, this blog will be about looking at and questioning brand images, the meanings and resonances they produce, and the realities they may mask. It’s called skepticism (what ought to be the default setting of anyone reaching into their pocket and plunking down dollars on En-eeee-thing).

So stay tuned, dear readers and feel free to highlight brands you’d like to lionize or rant about.