Last week the VOC was predictably swift and brutal as Progressive Insurance seemed to stoke the fires of discontent by replying with an automated "bobble head Flo" response to Matt Fisher's viral post "My Sister Paid Progressive to Defend Her Killers." Given the highly competitive insurance industry, the surprising part was just how ill-prepared Progressive was for the perfect PR storm and the reputation management crisis that ensued.
Whether you've got the comic icons of Cavemen, a Gecko, the Duck or Flo watching your insured back, the expectations of social customer satisfaction today are remarkably elevated. This begs the question as to why Progressive Insurance would not have a social media strategy in place to mitigate, or altogether avert the brand equity erosion of a looming crisis, let alone not routinely monitor VOC and engage with customers to sharpen brand profile on an ongoing basis. In hindsight, the brand failed on all counts.
The incident prompted us to take a look at the social profiles and VOC for the Progressive insurer and two of its key competitors with aggressive media spends-Allstate, GEICO-not only to gauge buzz volume but importantly, in relation to each brand's Net Sentiment and Passion Intensity.
Based on the comparative NetBase brand summary, over the past year GEICO has enjoyed the largest share of voice, followed by Progressive and Allstate. Net Sentiment for GEICO and Allstate almost are on a par, as is Passion Intensity, with GEICO slightly in the lead. Fetching a low share of buzz until its recent social implosion, Progressive also suffers the most abysmal Net Sentiment and elevated Passion Intensity, which indicates, in this case, both overwhelming negative chatter and emotional VOC discord over the Katie Fisher case.
When viewed under another lens, and leveraging the NetBase NLP Insight Composer platform, our competitive Net Sentiment 12 month trend analysis shows GEICO consistently on top, shadowed closely by Allstate and with Progressive unfailingly trailing both.
Since 2007, auto insurance carriers-a $160 billion market-have increased ad spend by 60%. So what ails Progressive? For one, the insurer doesn't have the mighty ad spend of these two competitors. Still, to their credit, the clever, albeit goofy humor of both the GEICO and Progressive icons has helped boost market share, at least for now. Allstate, on the other hand, has lost market share over the past 5 years, although this past year it maintained a favorable Sentiment and Passion Intensity trend.
But ad spending and clever icons alone do not make nor guarantee new or lasting customers. For instance, and perhaps recognizing the limitations of effervescent Flo, Progressive has increased the visibility of another one of its spokes-characters: The Messenger. Other such insurance carriers as Nationwide also appear to be moving away from the comic character fray, introducing instead a warm and fuzzy tone to their marketing, perhaps more in sync with the tough economic climate.
In a discount marketing move to add market share, Progressive further rolled out Snapshot, a device that records a driver's real-time driving habits, offering an attractive reduction plan as an incentive. However, Snapshot has come under heavy criticism by privacy advocates who fear insurance carriers may selectively use the Snapshot recordings against customers.
The VOC is mixed on Flo. While some find the uninhibited exuberance of the Progressive icon genuinely "funny" or "hilarious," or her character "hot," others find her "creepy," "annoying," "irritating," or "horrifying," and allude to her lack of authenticity or say they're unable to pinpoint exactly why they loathe her so much. The same dissonance is expressed regarding the Progressive commercials.
The attributes cloud below is filtered for "Progressive Insurance Flo," or as she is often referred to as, "the Progressive lady."
On the other hand, when GEICO's VOC is filtered for its iconic Gecko in the attributes cloud below, much of the chatter expresses love for the "adorable little lizard," admiring it for "revolutionizing the brand" while some criticize it as "weird," or "not representing the traditional family."
As for the Allstate folks, their iconic "Mayhem" commercial trends positively with predominant VOC appreciation for its authentic humor.
While this competitive social brand analysis focuses on VOC response to insurance carrier marketing- and how ad campaigns impact consumer perception trends-the social data amassed by NetBase social intelligence platform reveals other significant issues; in particular, customer service and claims management. Analysis of these core CRM issues would likely surface insights critical to Progressive Insurance designing a new customer-centric social strategy that includes a non-robotic people-centric crisis deployment system-a true test of ability to genuinely deliver on brand proposition.