Hiscox UK may be focused on art but its marketing director, Annabel Venner, never loses sight of the science. Maxine-Laurie Marshall meets the marketer with a penchant for measurement
A sculpture of an over-sized brightly coloured plastic flower to my left, a large canvas filled with red and black paint taking up most of the wall in front of me. Up to the ninth floor and I’m greeted by Damien Hirst’s ‘Sacred Heart’ and for the grand finale, a stuffed squirrel curled up in large cocktail glass. Welcome to the Hiscox offices where the insurer has a curator whose only brief is to inspire debate.
Annabel Venner, marketing director at Hiscox UK, explains the art is not as random as it seems. Speaking about the company’s chairman Robert Hiscox, son of founder Ralph Hiscox, she says, “Robert has a massive passion for art and as a business our love of art gets into everything we do; we insure, collect it and sponsor it.”
While she’s a fan of the art and conversations it provokes within the company, Venner’s passion for marketing stems back to when she graduated from university with a chemistry degree. She started working for Smithkline Beecham, managing the manufacturing and packaging teams, but became so heavily involved with the marketing department she asked for a transfer and never looked back. “I realised I had a passion for understanding and getting closer to the customer, so asked for a secondment to marketing. What started as a six-month secondment ended up in a career change.”
Venner doesn’t seem to be the sort of person to shy away from a challenge and this is confirmed when she asserts that marketers need to take responsibility for engaging senior people from within the business. “I think marketing teams need to take a sense of responsibility for going out there and finding ways in which they can engage senior members of an organisation and really understand the ways they need to communicate the impact they’re having.”
Backing from the board
After spending a long time working in FMCG, including eight years at Coca Cola, Venner was head-hunted by Hiscox and took up the role because she wanted to work in a more challenging environment.
At Hiscox, this is achieved by tracking all marketing activity and feeding that back across the group. Venner says, “I think it’s crucial to look at very simple tools you can use to engage senior people within the business and I think this is one of them. It works really well; we do tracking every six months and it is shared with the board.”
Remembering the bottom line
Hiscox’s latest big marketing campaign ‘As good as our word’ has already been subjected to tracking and measuring despite only being half-way through its execution. The slick TV advert was directed by Tomas Alfredson – director of ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ – and features a voiceover from Sherlock Holmes and ‘War Horse’ actor, Benedict Cumberbatch. The ad launched in May with the aim of driving greater brand affinity for Hiscox.
Venner explains the plan was to come off air in July because “we’re having a break while London is focused elsewhere. But we’ll have a second wave of activity in September.”
In line with her focus on tracking and feeding that back to senior colleagues, she could already say, “It’s doing what we expected. It’s driving differentiation and it’s clearly communicating us as being a company that’s well respected, trustworthy and honourable.”
Bold statements to make, but due to Hiscox’s stringent tracking, they are statements Venner can back up with statistics. Hiscox has a large sample of people taken from its target market who are split into two groups, those who have and haven’t seen the advert. They are then asked to agree or disagree with a range of statements about the brand.
The TV campaign is being supported by outdoor activity but Venner always has firm business results on her mind. She advises, “It’s absolutely critical that you don’t take your eye off the ball and just deliver a nice brand campaign that will deliver awareness, but are also very focused on driving quotes, sales and the business numbers at the same time. Hiscox is an ambitious company. We
want to be seen to be growing so business results are something we need to be seen achieving.”
Venner is highly conscious of delivering quality marketing, as well as making sure it’s accountable and can answer all the questions the board might throw her way. Helping her out is the positive view Hiscox has about the marketing department and its impact on the board. She says, “It was great coming to a company that also values marketing. Steve Langan is our MD but he is also group marketing director so understands and appreciates the work we do.”
The freedom to test
Hiscox not only values marketing but allows it to experiment and test. Venner explains that planning on 2013 activity has just begun and reveals she is lucky enough to have a certain percentage of money to test on new ideas. She says, “There are always opportunities to test and learn, and that’s a great thing. As long as you learn from it and feed it back into your planning then it’s not wrong.”
Something Venner has learnt is to observe emerging trends and know when to act. Hiscox has seen a huge increase in mobile web traffic, however, referencing the fast-paced nature of digital developments she says, “You have to be able to quickly evaluate what’s right or wrong and not get distracted.”
Knowing how much tracking and testing her team does, it’s impossible to imagine an unfocused Venner. As if she could see my thoughts she confirms my suspicions and says, “We always look at developments and evaluate them.”
Venner’s top tips for a successful TV campaign
1. Be an early bird. Run any TV advertising early on in the year, it will have more impact on your brand as opposed to a campaign that launches in September/October.
2. Don’t get carried away. TV is a very powerful way to connect with people emotionally. Use it to drive brand affinity but don’t get carried away with a brand campaign, remember to continue activity that drives sales and business numbers.
3. Mind the metrics. Track and measure the impact it has by comparing responses of those who have and have not seen the campaign.
