DMW Direct Captures Prestigious Best of Show Honor from Philadelphia Direct Marketing Association, Also Takes Home Three Benjamin Franklin Awards for Insurance Clients
DMW Direct wins all Insurance category “Benny” awards, recognizing winning campaigns that market Medicare and juvenile life insurance.
WAYNE, Pa. — June 02, 2010 — DMW Direct (http://www.dmwdirect.com) and three insurance clients – Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, Gerber Life Insurance Company and Tufts Health Plan – were honored with 2010 Philadelphia Direct Marketing Association (PDMA) Benjamin Franklin Awards for Direct Marketing Excellence at the association’s annual recognition event.
Capping the evening’s festivities, Tufts Health Plan and DMW Direct were honored with the Thomas Black Memorial Best of Show award. With these four wins, DMW Direct swept the “Benny” award Insurance categories.
“We’re really pleased, on behalf of our clients, to receive these important awards for excellence in direct marketing,” said Warren Hunter, DMW Direct’s Chairman and CEO and 2006 PDMA Direct Marketer of the Year. “These honors are a testament to the successful results that true marketing partnerships can deliver.”
Benny and Thomas Black Memorial Best of Show Winner: Tufts Health Plan
Entry: “4Q09 Tufts Health Plan Medicare Preferred Campaign”
Category: Direct Mail, Invitation to Inquire, Insurance category
Although Tufts Health Plan markets its Medicare Advantage products throughout the year, the most critical marketing period is in the fall during the Medicare annual election period. Tufts Health Plan is a strong, local brand and the largest Medicare Advantage provider in New England, but each year faces the challenge of generating new members in a highly competitive landscape. Tufts Health Plan turned to DMW Direct to help differentiate itself from its competitors and overcome key challenges related to specific segments within the target audience.
DMW Direct helped Tufts Health Plan develop a strategy that would address three major target audience mindsets while delivering highly consumer-centric messaging. The strategy was based on the premise that response and conversion rates would be positively impacted by effectively varying the creative and message, the timing of specific messages, and number of touches. Working closely with the Tufts Health Plan Medicare marketing team, a brand new DMW Direct client, this program surpassed their quarterly goals.
Benny Winner: Excellus BlueCross BlueShield
Entry: “Multi-Medicare”
Category: Multi-Media, Invitation to Inquire, Insurance
The combination of a difficult economy plus year-long speculation and uncertainty about healthcare reform made for an environment ripe for seniors to shop for a Medicare health plan during the 2009 Medicare annual election period. Excellus BlueCross BlueShield competes with local, regional, and well-known national carriers each year. DMW Direct worked with Excellus BCBS to create a multi-media campaign that would: 1) significantly increase the number of Upstate New Yorkers requesting information via direct mail and television about its Medicare Advantage plans, and 2) boost online enrollment for Excellus BCBS Medicare Advantage plans via the landing page.
It is important to note that each medium had to stand on its own and achieve specific objectives. The marketing strategy centered around capitalizing on the target market’s expected desire to shop, compare, and switch Medicare plans. Both the direct mail and television efforts highlighted a strong savings message and an emphasis on key competitive advantages. Direct mail and television lead volumes and number of applications both increased more than 70 percent over the previous year and cost-per-lead was 32 percent less compared to 2008. What’s more, Excellus BCBS experienced a rate of online enrollment four times higher than the national average.
Benny Winner: Gerber Life Insurance Company
Entry: “Brighter Future”
Category: Internet/Interactive, Creative Only, Insurance
In 2009, Gerber Life experienced a significant increase in lead quantity. In spite of boosting this up-front metric, sales conversions were off by 25 percent. Gerber needed to learn how more leads could be generating fewer sales. It turned to DMW Direct for help.
Gerber’s hypothesis was that parents who were sold in past years via traditional direct mail and fulfillment materials were not seeing sufficient value to buy, given the current economy. The strategy evolved into creating a new effort in the current e-mail conversion series – an HTML e-mail and a new digital web presence to engage prospects, help them understand the product benefits, and move them further along the decision-making trail toward a sale. The creative strategy combined coverage facts and baby images which “brought to life” the famous Gerber baby logo by depicting various babies in inspirational occupations.
Although only recently deployed, the “Brighter Future” interactive application is showing initial positive results indicating that this marketing solution is gaining real traction with the primary target audience: young parents who were intrigued by the e-mail and website creative, spent quality time exploring the product’s benefits, and as a result moved down the path toward a converted sale.
About the PDMA Benjamin Franklin Award for Direct Marketing Excellence
The Benjamin Franklin Award for Direct Marketing Excellence competition has been a proud Philadelphia tradition for 37 years with the “Benny” itself now one of the region’s highest honors in direct marketing and advertising. A panel of direct marketing experts from the Direct Marketing Club of New York judged this year’s submissions and awarded 30 winners and 3 honorable mentions in addition to naming the Thomas Black Memorial Best of Show. Categories cover direct mail, Internet/interactive, multi-media, three dimensional, television, and print.
About DMW Direct
DMW Direct is a full-service direct response advertising agency with offices in Wayne, Pa., Plymouth, Mass., and St. Louis, Mo. The ECHO Award-winning firm — which ranks among the prestigious Advertising Age “Top 50 Direct Marketing Agencies” — provides strategic counsel and planning, creative, data analytics, broadcast, media, production, fulfillment, and interactive/multi-channel direct response marketing solutions. Industries served include insurance, financial services, consumer products, B2B, and non-profit. DMW Direct’s Chairman and CEO, Warren Hunter, can be reached at 610-407-0407 or via e-mail at whunter@dmwdirect.com. Visit DMW’s Website at http://www.dmwdirect.com.
