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It’s 7 weeks since I wrote my first ever blog, it hasn’t turned me into a blog addict, a ‘Twitterer’ or a ‘Facebook’ regular. I like talking too much to ever do all my communications via virtual means, any of you who’ve met me will know that to be the case.

Over the last many, many weeks of our rebrand, regular readers of this blog will have heard it all…..the biggest and best rebrand ever, how much we are or aren’t spending, the TV ads, the things we’re excited about doing differently like Fast Trade, I could go on and on. So rather than wax lyrical about the next big thing we’re doing, I thought I’d share a story from my holiday.

Last week, me and my long-suffering hubby took my Mum and my in-laws away to Sardinia for a few days (brave I know). My father-in-law is a lovely man, we get on really well, he’s never short of an opinion and neither am I. The sun shone, we all relaxed and one night after dinner and a few glasses of wine, as so often is the case with friends and family these days, he brought up the subject of the rebrand, and specifically the TV ads. The conversation went something like this:

Him: Those ads are really good, you did well to get all those famous people.

Me: They’ve certainly made an impact, everyone you speak to mentions them.

Him: Yeah, pity you couldn’t get the real Bruce Willis though.

Me: What do you mean we couldn’t get the real Bruce Willis?

Him: Well he’s obviously a look-alike.

Me: Of course he’s not a look-alike, he’s the real Bruce Willis!

Him: No he’s not, he doesn’t even look like Bruce Willis, and he certainly doesn’t sound like him.

Me: It is Bruce Willis, we wouldn’t go to all that trouble and get a look-alike!

Him: No it’s not, whoever made those ads is having you on!

…and so it went on.

The conversation lasted for about ten minutes, the one thing you should know about my father-in-law is he’s never wrong. In all the conversations, opinions, jokes, challenges and stuff that I’ve heard about the rebrand this one is my most memorable, I was even doubting myself by the end of it, started to doubt whether we really had the real Bruce Willis in our ads, and to top it all I was on my holidays trying to escape all this.

There is a moral to this story for me, though I struggled to find it for a while. That is love it or hate it very few people haven’t heard about the Aviva rebrand, there is no escape even on your holidays.

So what profound learning did I take from all this? Well never argue with my father-in-law when he’s had a few, for one.

The other thought I had is that the hard work is nearly done but the really hard work is only just beginning. Why? Well there is no doubt that awareness and recognition of the rebrand is high. And as the memory of Bruce and his look-alike fades, the real test of the rebrand begins. Now is when we need to prove that we are different. That Fast Trade really is the best small business package offer in the market. That our new personal lines offer for brokers will really knock your socks off. That our people really see and live the new brand and you feel it when you deal with them. That our life blood is our relationships with brokers of all shapes and sizes and that we listen and respond to what you need as individual brokers.

So if I sum it all up, we aspire to be more than just a look-alike and now is the time to prove it.

Janice Deakin is Corporate Sales Director of Norwich Union