gold

Driving down to Birmingham after attending a family funeral on a wet and dark Friday night last week, I wasn’t really feeling or expecting too much from the evening ahead at the Insurance Times Awards.

After rapidly checking in and quickly swapping my black suit and tie for a black DJ and bow tie, I darted to the Aviva branded bar area to press the flesh, hook up with members of my brilliant marketing team and play host to the finalists from the IT pack…Oh yes and get that much deserved and eagerly awaited drink!

At the bar I quickly remembered how important the Insurance Times awards are. It’s our moment (our being the industry at large) to be recognised for our achievements, a chance to bask in the glory as a winner, even if only for a brief moment and of course the opportunity to meet our broker friends and even our competitors. Soon we had all taken our seats for dinner, the gold shower curtain (you had to be there) had fallen to the floor and all eyes were lifted heaven-ward to the imposing if rather high stage. The awards began to flow, as did the wine, as did the chat and on stage our industry talent was recognised.

One award Aviva had entered this year was especially close to my heart. The Industry Communications Strategy of the Year encompassed everything my marketing team had worked so hard on this year. Ensuring that our brokers, were completely engaged and informed as we moved from Norwich Union to Aviva here in the UK.  

As I sat at the dinner table I started thinking about the variety of work undertaken to ensure that brokers were happy with the way we had communicated the change to Aviva. This blog,  the e-zines, BIBA conference, the heritage supplement and our TV advert promoting brokers as the right choice for business insurance – all playing a part in ensuring that 9 out of 10 brokers were happy with the manner we had communicated the change to Aviva.

And for me that’s the real prize, so as the winners were being read out (well done Matthew Stringer on winning the IT Pack – well deserved!), I felt a real sense of pride. Even if we didn’t win the award we had still achieved a lot this year…But we did win!

And it’s great to have been recognised externally by experts in the industry for a great job done and have the opportunity to receive the award and walk around post ceremony showing off our very own gold bar all to the sounds of Tony Hadley…

Brian Spinks, Head of Corporate Marketing