The language experts from maslansky + partners take on the smartest, savviest, and sometimes stupidest messages in the market today. CEO Michael Maslansky and President Lee Carter bring their experience with words, communication, and behavioral science to the table — along with a colleague or client — and offer up a “lay of the language.” Their insight helps make sense of business, life, and culture, and proves over and over again that It’s Not What You Say, It’s What They Hear™.

We all know it’s critical to understand your audience before creating any marketing, but how do you do it in an intellectually honest way?  How do you make sure you are truly focused on your audience as they are, not as you want them to be? In this episode of HearSay, guest Ori Ben Yishai, a partner at Viewpoint Ventures, talks about the intellectually honest approach to insights and how to use what you learn to build language strategy that drives results.

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LINKS MENTIONED IN THE SHOW

Lee Carter’s book, Persuasion

Michael Maslansky’s book, The Language of Trust

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maslansky + partners LinkedIn

maslansky + partners Twitter

TRANSCRIPT BELOW

Michael Maslansky:

They said what? Welcome to HearsSay, a podcast from the language strategists at Maslansky + Partners, where we give our take on the strategy behind the smartest, savviest, and stupidest messages in the market today, and what you can learn from them. Our philosophy is it’s not what you say, it’s what they hear, and that’s why we call this HearSay. I’m Michael Maslansky, CEO of Maslansky + Partners, and author of The Language of Trust, and today I am joined by two of my colleagues, Katie Cronen and Maria Boos, who are stepping in for Lee, who’s not joining us today. Hello, Katie.

Katie Cronen:

Hey, Michael. How are you doing?

Michael Maslansky:

I’m doing great. Hello, Maria.

Maria Boos:

Hello. Thanks for having me.

Michael Maslansky:

Well, I am really excited about this episode for two reasons. First of all, I get to co-host with you both, which is great. And second, as you know, I’ve pre-taped an interview with our guest, and we’re going to share parts of that interview, and then the three of us will talk about what the insights are and how we can talk about, the implications for other industries and clients. So our guest is a gentleman named Ori Ben-Yishai. To me he’s one of the best strategists and marketers out there. He’s currently a partner at Viewpoint Ventures, which is an insurance-focused venture fund, but prior to that, he was the chief marketing officer at Chubb Insurance, and before that was the chief marketer at, AXA US. And we had the opportunity to work together at both of these places. And, you know, one of the things that’s interesting is that Ori has this deep experience in the insurance space. And when you’re working in insurance, as you both know, we’ve got this intangible product. We’ve got that product that people don’t really want to pay for, even if they know they need it. And when we think about how to talk about it, how to position it, how to message it, you need more than just a good message, actually. As important as we think our work is, you’ve actually got to get the whole organization behind you if you’re going to make that message work, you know, we’ve seen you need the sales teams, the direct and indirect sales teams, the entire service organization, everybody’s got to echo the positioning and the message, so that it doesn’t sound like a contradiction. And Ori I think is really a master, at putting all that together, and as a result in generating, an incredible return on the investment that he made in language strategy and in the positioning, and really making the message stick. And so, we’re going to talk about the things that he thinks about and how he approaches things, and what really makes the difference in his mind. And then we’ll talk about what we can learn from it.

Katie Cronen:

Sounds great. Yeah. I am so excited that Ori was our guest I’ve had the pleasure of working with Ori in the past, and he really is singular. But there’s so much that we can learn from the work that we’ve been able to do together and the way that he thinks about these challenges because it can be one whole thing understanding what to say, but actually thinking about how you’re going to get people to use it is a whole other ball of wax. And I totally agree, he is a master at getting people along for the ride on the strategy so the work that he does really pays off tenfold.

Maria Boos:

Oh, I love that idea. It’s not as though someone’s going to stand on the street and read your positioning statement, or worse your 80-slide PowerPoint, it’s really about how does it get put into action.

Michael Maslansky:

So there’s one common theme that has been true of all the work (laughs) that I’ve done with Ori, and that is that he brings a certain amount of skepticism (laughs) to the work that he does. It’s always interesting to partner with him as a result of that. But he challenges all the assumptions. He challenges us. And I think it’s a really helpful construct, for getting to the right answer and for thinking about what’s really necessary to get the best possible output and to make the greatest possible impact. So let’s listen in to the first part of our interview.

Ori Ben Yishai:

Way back when, through launching an entirely new business line to entering a new market, to articulating a shared brand mission to an organization following multiple mergers and reorganizations. So clearly we’ve done a lot together. And as I reflected back on our work, as I was preparing for this conversation, I realized that what was coming to all as a marketer working with you and your team, I’ve always approached each of these projects as much as I could with kind of intellectual honesty, assuming that I don’t know the answer, I don’t know how to position this product in this market. I don’t know how to speak about products and services in a new market entry or what the right answer is to bring all the employees together behind shared values. But I think what has always been the case in each and every instance, people never leave a vacuum searching for answers. People always believe they have the answer before the research begins. We’re all creatures of habit. We’re all creatures of biases. We’re all informed by our past experiences and beliefs. In one project we did for a company that was entering a new business line, as we entered a new business line, we hired a team as we should have. We hired a team of folks, executives who had done that before working at other places. But when they show up, they think that they already know the answer. They believe the strategy is set. And that’s true across all projects. So the people that you keep in mind as you approach these projects are always multiple. You have the external audiences that are the ultimate objective or target of the research you’re doing. You have business partners, which could be distribution partners or consultants or influencers who stand between you and the target market, but you should never forget the internal audiences that you work with or from other functions. It could be sales, it could be marketing, it could be operations, it could be technology, it could be financed. And everybody’s showing up with pretty firm beliefs on what the answer should be.

Michael Maslansky:

Yeah. And actually, I feel like there are a couple of things that you said there. First in terms of not knowing the answer and being able to come in and say, “All right, Let’s experiment, let’s come up with a bunch of hypotheses and test them with the people that matter.” And that’s the core of, I think each of the engagements that we’ve done together so that when we come out of it, we’ve got that, as you said, intellectually honest approach I think is really critically important. And then the different stakeholders, you really think about it holistically and there’s so many different dimensions in which you looked at the research really. You said, “This is not only going to give us insights that we’re going to use in our marketing strategy,” but you started to think about, okay, how can I deploy those insights? How can I use those insights to appeal to other stakeholders? And I think that’s what made many of these efforts so successful.

Ori Ben Yishai:

I remember I once had a conversation with a different partner. They were trying to understand what I was looking to do, which we’re going to get into in a second, which is exactly what I have always done with your team. And they said, “No, no, I don’t get it. There is research to show and there is research to know. Which one do you want?” But the research to know is how usually marketers approach the problem, which is I actually really need to know the insights. I need to inform my marketing strategy. I need to inform my segmentation approach. I need to inform my target. So I need to use insights to choose the right segment to go after. I need to use and leverage insights to position myself. And of course, I need insights to figure out my go-to-market strategy. So that’s all part of the secret sauce. And certainly, there are proprietary insights that you never want to share with others because they really are your knowledge is power, knowledge is asset. You’re invested in the research and you want that to inform your unique strategy. Research to show, I think typically the most common example you can find out there is. I sell products and services. I go to the market, I survey my prospective clients on attitudes, behaviors, thoughts around the topic. I package it up and survey it back to them. And so I say, “Hey, people like you believe that X, Y, Z is a major concern or people like you believe that X, Y, Z needs to be implemented and I am planning to implement or buy those services. And by the way, the vendor, am happy to give that to you.” So that’s a very common example of I think research to show. But as I was thinking about it over the years, I said, “Well, number one, why does it have to be either or? Can I unlock some insights for my own strategy and I use it for commercial purposes?” So that’s at the heart of my approach was a desire to effectively increase my return on my investment in research. And so certainly as we work together, there is a body of insights that I don’t want to share. And there’s probably even less value in sharing them because they are so unique and idiosyncratic to the organization that you represent or that conducted or paid for the research. But there’s also a ton of insights that you can actually take to market and by externalizing them, you achieve additional objectives, additional commercial objectives, or internal organizational objectives.

Michael Maslansky:

So, you know, for me working with Ori on things like this, the way that he looked at this idea of research to know versus research to show and even as we talked about research to grow, Creates so many more opportunities to get value out of any investment in, in research and messaging. Katie, what’s your take on everything that we heard from Ori?

Katie Cronen:

Yeah. I was struck by how when you’re actually trying to do both, you’re trying to use the research to know what you need to do and to show it off and maximize your return on the investment when you know that going in that changes a lot about even how we think about how we conduct the research and how we moderate the sessions. You know, we’re always thinking it’s not enough, just if, as we as a team of researchers got to the answer, we have to ask ourselves, was it super clear to somebody, listening to the conversation, maybe half listening to the conversation and multitasking, what the actual takeaway was? And can we, over the course of the research, maybe even get two or three of the best moments into a video package for the team, or for the people who, aren’t part of the team, but are going to need to act on whatever we found later on down the line? And those two minutes of the most salient parts of the research, they wind up getting played over and over and over again, to all these different audiences. It goes so much further that way. And every time I’ve done it, I feel like my client has gotten promoted. So I just… I think it’s, it’s a great way to go about all of this.

Maria Boos:

Well, that’s the secret sauce, Katie.

Katie Cronen:                   

(laughs).

Michael Maslansky:        

(laughs).

Maria Boos:

So, you know, as you’ve been talking about, you’re Ori’s, sort of one of his founding ideas there that you know, these leadership teams really believe in their heart, they already know the answer. and you know, that’s valid. But how can we help them see the value of putting that aside and being open to different hypotheses? And you know, some of this makes me think about the classic divide between marketing and sales, which of course, should not be a divide. We did a project for a big global technology services provider on what they were calling engagement narratives. And they chose that title really specifically, because the whole point was, how do we equip the sales force to go out there with conversation starters that are going to prime a prospect to want to hear more to truly engage in conversation? So that’s hence the engagement narrative. But marketing wanted to do what they had always done, which was start with the solution. You know, solution is such an overused word in technology. So they wanted to talk about, you know, their innovations, their capabilities, their services. And if you just let us get all of this out in one breath, surely, you’re going to want to work with us. And maybe the most open-minded of them, the ones who weren’t as sure that they already knew the answer, they thought, well, maybe we should start with the customers’ challenge. But they meant the technology challenge. So they were full of buzzwords like cloud modernization or data activation. And it was really only through the external conversations to, you know, bringing them into research with, with real customers that, that they came to understand that what’s really going to make or break that initial conversation is demonstrating an understanding of the client’s business challenge. And only then can you get to the role that technology could play in solving the challenge. That’s just one example that came to mind about why it’s so important to help our clients broaden the hypotheses that they bring into research.

Katie Cronen:

Yeah, Ori talks a lot about intellectual honesty. And for me, one flag about whether or not we’re being intellectually honest with our approach really comes down to even what you were talking about, Maria, of how many different cracks at the bat, are we taking to get the message right? Like if you say, here’s our set of stimuli, we have two, maybe three options, which one is the best one? Usually what’s happened is that a giant team of stakeholders has, you know, all had to come to a consensus about which two or three options they find the most palatable. And I found that if you only go by that route, and you winnow the field before you bring all of your ideas to your audience, you might be leaving some really genius stuff on the cutting room floor, just because your own internal team doesn’t love it. So, you know, I always advocate for approaches that allow us to bring more into testing at the outset and let our audience really tell us, what speaks to them.

Michael Maslansky:

I think one of the really important things that Ori focuses on and points out is about thinking about our audiences, holistically and thinking about all the touch points where the work can have an impact and where it needs to have an impact. And you’re on the one hand, you, Maria, as you focus on customer communications, you know, the idea that we do research for marketing and customer communications, and many organizations may never see it, is a huge missed opportunity, because you create contradictions out there, that are often difficult to overcome. But I think that this point about finding the right audiences is really critical. And, Ori makes it in a way that is really powerful and maybe not in the way that everyone might think.

Ori Ben Yishai:

So that’s at the heart of my approach was a desire to effectively increase my return on my investment in research. And so certainly as we work together, there is a body of insights that I don’t want to share. And there’s probably even less value in sharing them because they are so unique and idiosyncratic to the organization that you represent or that conducted or paid for the research. But there’s also a ton of insights that you can actually take to market and by externalizing them, you achieve additional objectives, additional commercial objectives, or internal organizational objectives.

Michael Maslansky:

Yeah, I mean, so just to make that a bit tangible. We took a body of research, and that informed the positioning strategy and ultimately the messaging that we went to market with. And then we filmed videos to talk about the research and what we learned from it that you either wanted to share internally to sell the message, or were willing to share externally to show and to grow. We did white papers, we did a road show where we presented it to intermediaries, and really it created this whole universe of content to build on what would’ve otherwise been a more typical engagement.

Ori Ben Yishai:

Yeah, so what I always encourage marketers to do and think about internal audiences in the same way you think about external audiences, you’re a marketer, so you got to do the same thing. Segmentation, targeting, positioning. What are you hoping to accomplish with internal audiences? What’s your objective? How do you going to position the message? Once you do that, you go to activation, you have a go-to-market strategy. You need to have a go-to-market strategy, even if you’re targeting internal audiences. And to the point of segmentation, you probably should not have the same activation plan. You probably should not have the same activation plan for the sales team, the distribution team as you do for the customer service team, or for the legal and finance teams. Not because people are different, but because you want to highlight different aspects of the message. And frankly, you probably also want to think through how much resources you’re investing in each population because not each population is as relevant and important for the initiative. So as an example, to make it more concrete. You launch a new product into the market and you come up with an interesting way or the right way to position it to the end client. You probably need to spend a ton of time with the field organization, and distribution organization that will take it to market. But you probably also want to spend some time with the people who sit on the other side of customer service who will be receiving phone calls from either distribution partners or from the end client. How you bring everybody up to speed, how you train people would be different. And how many times do you need to repeat the message using different channels is also different. But ultimately, deploying a multi-channel activation campaign is the same when you take it externally to the market and internally to audiences. So all of the examples you mentioned, Michael, were accurate when we took the message externally to market and we worked together a lot on b2b. So you and I, you and your team, my teams, we spend a lot of time delivering, and communicating messages to audiences of financial advisors and insurance agents, depending on the company. You always want to deploy your marketing across multiple channels. Just because the more channels you activate, the more likely it is that people will actually pay attention. We produced multimedia assets where we deliver the insights. That included online and offline. So what we did together, we produced videos, we produced print brochures, we produced a video book, so you produce all the content, you stage the content on a website, which is your destination, and then you start activating. The activation where you guys also participated, included paid advertising, included earned media and PR, webinars, direct mail, email, social media. Then we did live events. You guys joined us in, I don’t know, 20?

Michael- Maslansky:

A lot, yeah.

Ori Ben Yishai:

Visitations around the country, which was a hit. You were our external speakers. Always provided draw for our distribution partners to come listen and meet people that they usually don’t get to meet. And then we delivered the content in person as well. When it comes to internal audiences, you obviously have better control and you also have better governance. You can actually force people to go through training. But then again, you go through a mix of online, offline. Meaning we recorded a webinar together, one of those brain sharks that people had to take training and then they got the mandatory anti-money laundering or diversity training that HR rolls out. We did one of those. If you worked in a function that had to be trained, we can actually make sure that you took the webinar. But in addition to that, we did in person as well.

Michael Maslansky:

And I mean it creates this virtuous circle, right? Because now all of a sudden you’ve got alignment between marketing and sales, between compliance and marketing, between internal and external. And not only does it make the message stick more internally, it gives it hopefully more impact externally.

Ori Ben Yishai:

A hundred percent. And I still, to this day, in my current gig at a VC, I still interact a lot with insurance agents and financial advisors and people still remember the initiatives we rolled out together. They still stand out as unique and special.

Michael Maslansky:

That’s great. So if you had to do it over again, are there things that you would do differently or more of or less of?

Ori Ben Yishai: 

I think so for listeners who are considering taking similar approach, I think several recommendations that reflect back. Once again, split the world into internal and external. So sort of focus on the audiences that you want to influence as part of the initiative. When it comes to internal audiences, further segment and maybe isolate the leadership first and foremost. And you certainly want to bring them along throughout the project, depending on the magnitude and scope and the objectives. But make sure you find opportunities to allow people to participate actively with the Maslansky team. The second thing, as I think about the process that we took following the language lab, the dial sessions. Those offer incredible opportunities to bring people into the process as influencers and contributors, but also as viewers. I remember that in a couple of the dial sessions that we did together, we invited outside insurance agents to come join us and sit behind the one-sided mirror and watch their perspective clients talk about how they think about the products and services that, in that case, agents were selling. That not only helps with the ultimate objective, which is to drive change. It also helps with the relationship building with those distribution partners and once again, something very different than the usual hospitality events that they’re invited to. And thinking back and reflecting back, I would probably have, in hindsight, I would’ve invited more external partners into those dial sessions. The other thing that worked, it was not just the way we worked together, our teams. We didn’t end it with that one project. You guys actually stayed on and worked with us for a couple of years after, and you were there to help us with any new campaign we rolled out, any new product materials we rolled out. And obviously, we kept working together, but it was so incredibly helpful. And it wasn’t only on the sales and marketing side. You helped us with a lot of the operations, new client onboarding, the experience of new clients as they onboard.

Maria Boos:

Ori said so many things there, that are really important. a couple of things that really jump out to me. You know, one is this notion that it’s not one and done. It takes a while to really internalize it and weave it into the fabric of how people do their jobs day-to-day, and how they support the message in whatever direct or indirect role they’re responsible for delivering it. And I think the other point he made about segmenting the internal audience is part of that too. I think it’s unrealistic to assume that the same level of training, and the same examples that you use in the training, are going to be relevant to everybody and help everybody get it. Particularly when you’re talking about communicators. you know, the folks who work on marketing communications for certain audiences. That’s very different from if you’re working on transactional communications for customers. And, you know, as you know, that’s a great passion of mine. Because I think they’re sort of like the unloved children that deserve a lot of attention. But if you’re training those communicators with examples that do not look like the things that they write and edit or publish every day, you’re not really helping them understand how the positioning, how the messaging, how the strategy is relevant. And it has to be relevant in those nitty-gritty, transactional, service-oriented, regulatory communications, emails, you know, in-app communications. So those people need to be trained on, well, how is this message relevant to what I’m doing every day.

Katie Cronen:

One of the things that stood out to me, that I was thinking about related to this topic, is, you know, you don’t always necessarily have a hug budget for activating your strategy internally. Maybe you have, some kind of budget, or time at least. But you can think about this and be effective, even if your resources, are somewhat constrained. You know, one of the examples that wasn’t shared but I thought was kind of funny here is that when we were coming up with a language strategy for the value proposition of a business line, we ordered mousepads. And put the new language on the mousepads for all of the employees. And that was small and maybe not the biggest investment, but it was a daily reminder to everybody, what the value proposition was of the company, and how we were going to articulate it. But on the flip side of things, I’ve also worked in situations where, you know, for instance, we were trying to get everybody in a department to tell more stories, and not just cite facts every time they communicated. And one of the things we did in that situation was, we actually created a storytelling leadership team. Where we actually, called the executive at the head of the initiative reached out to some of the people who were consistently telling great stories, elevated them, and we could also create awards based on that. So it became this, repeated drum-beat of reinforcement. To say, hey, these are the things we want to champion, and we can find, small but powerful ways to highlight progress and success.

Michael Maslansky:

Yeah, I think, you know, look, if every client had $100 million or more to put against, media and to really kind of promote the message, then in some ways that’s the easiest thing to do. Most clients don’t have the luxury of doing that, and the question is, how do you stretch what you’ve invested to make the most of it? And, it still takes a lot of work. In some ways, it takes more work because setting up these meetings and looking at how to approach people, in a distinct and personalized way, and different functions in the organization requires a lot of effort. But you know, I know when we see it, when we see organizations and you see somebody in a far-off department who knows the message that’s being communicated by marketing and knows how to apply it to their work so that the customer is getting this consistent experience in every touchpoint? It’s pretty magical, you know, in the world of what we do. And this really, you know, gets pretty close to the best that we’ve had the opportunity to do.

Maria Boos:

I love the thought of just, the mindset shift that everybody believes they are somehow responsible for living the message, even if there’s not a direct way that they interact with customers with communications, or with marketing. That it’s just like, woven into the fabric of the company’s culture. Many years ago I worked with a large health insurer. And this was, you know, in the before-times, and we traveled a lot, and I spent a lot of time at their headquarters. And they had these five things called the Perfect Experience Principles. And they were so dedicated to making everybody believe that they were part of bringing those Perfect Experience Principles to life. And they were so completely woven into the fabric of the company. They were literally painted on the stair risers. You know, so if you took the stairs between meetings instead of the elevator, they were literally in your face. Or if you walked into the bathroom, they were hanging on the bathroom mirror. It cracked me up. It was like there are inspirational sayings on the bathroom mirror? How did my mother get in here? But everybody really felt that they were part of it. And, it was, you know, it was low-cost and it was scrappy. It was like the equivalent of the mousepad, but blown up into these other areas where people could not escape them. And felt like they were part of it.

Michael Maslansky:

That’s great. Doesn’t happen often, it is great to see when organizations make that commitment. And, when we get to be a part of it. And the before-times comment, I love that phrase. I don’t know if it stays with us permanently and people know that it references the pre-pandemic era, but it sounds very Last Of Us.

Katie Cronen:

(laughs) New language for us to track.

Michael Maslansky:

That’s right. All right. So I’m going to pivot the conversation a little bit for the last point that I pulled out of the conversation with Ori. And, it is closer to the heart, of the language strategy work that we do, to set ourselves and our clients up for success, and it has to do with standing out from the crowd. And again, I come back to one of the things that is challenging in marketing insurance products, is that you can’t see, touch, or feel them. And we see how different, insurers try and kind of anthropomorphize them, or do other things to them to make them more tangible. But often, you’re operating in a crowded space, and you need to find a way to be distinct. The experience is very hard to demonstrate in compelling ways. And so, how do you do that? How do you, you know, find the distinction in that crowded space? Let’s take a listen in.

[INSERT ORI CLIP 13:45 (starts with “I know it’s hard to leave…”) – 19:26 (ends with “…the rest of it a lot more.”)]

Michael Maslansky:

I know it’s hard to leave the marketing mindset behind, even in what you’re doing as a VC investor now, but the marketing is hard. I think it’s often underrated as something difficult to do successfully by people who are not in marketing and communications. And the ecosystem is getting really complicated. Are there things that you look at now as ultimately you’ll start looking at portfolio companies, about how you’ll recommend that they look at the world or approach the world based on all that you’ve done before?

Ori Ben Yishai:

100%. Marketing discipline, marketing strategy is required in what we do today. So as a young and growing venture capital fund, we’re raising capital. We’re deep in the process of selling and marketing ourselves. And the same applies to the portfolio companies that we have already started to invest in and will continue to invest in. You have to take the time to be very clear with who your target customers are and how you stand out in this crowded marketplace. I love listening to podcasts. You guys often talk about how everybody thinks, “Gosh, we’re different. We’re so different. If the people out there only took time to understand how different we are, they would see that we’re so much better and we’re so different.” But number one, people do not take time, and number two, even when they do, you still sound like everybody else. So you really need to figure it out. It’s not easy at all to crystallize the message. It’s hard enough to get people to give you the time of day to deliver your pitch. What makes it even more difficult is your message then sounds like the other 20 people who have gone through the door.

Michael Maslansky:

So, as you said, you wanted to approach it in an intellectually, honest way and not assume you knew the answer. So what surprised you in the work that we did?

Ori Ben Yishai:

Well, I guess when you approach a problem with humility that you truly don’t know the answer, I guess nothing surprises you and then everything surprises you. So I was surprised and delighted by everything. I thought what was really interesting is my business partners, whether internal or external, people who already had deeply rooted beliefs about the market, people who have been speaking about products and services in a certain way for years, sometimes decades, they had been approaching a market in a certain way. I think to them, it was really interesting to watch them, either watching some of the focus groups or dial sessions live, and realizing that what they have been saying doesn’t work, or watching the videos after the fact and just scratching their head. And many of them of course were resistant. So that’s a whole different topic to discuss, how you drive change. But those who were as open enough to admit or understand, I think those were really, really interesting interactions. So, I’ll give you just maybe one example that is very public, because we posted everything online and I even interviewed about it in the media. It’s a work that we did together at Chubb Insurance where we try to crack the high net worth market. And this, it’s a market that’s commonly referred to as high net worth. It’s a market that’s commonly referred to as high net worth. But we had so many aha moments there together as we worked our way through the initiative. One of which was that, high net worth individuals don’t think of themselves as high net worth. The term itself turns them off because everybody thinks that they’re not. And everybody knows other people who are wealthier than they are, and those other people are rich and wealthy. I am not, I’m successful, I am financially successful. I worked hard to get to where I am, but somebody else who has a bigger house or bigger boat than I do, they truly are the affluent and wealthy people.

Michael Maslansky:

I think it’s so interesting in that, in an attempt to kind of elevate the people that the rest of the market was talking to, they were kind of talking over their heads. It was somebody wealthier than them. And what we really did is we found language that met people more where they were, in terms of how they think about themselves. And the storytelling that you and we were able to do about people being successful versus being high net worth, really I think helped to change the whole tonality of everything that you created after that.

Ori Ben Yishai:

Exactly. I think for those who are listening and are interested, maybe perhaps they’re in insurance or in delivering similar services. Insurance is really hard, marketing insurance, one of the only products that after you buy it, you get nothing for it. You have nothing to show for it. There’s …

Michael Maslansky:

A bill.

Ori Ben Yishai:

There’s a bill, you don’t you get anything. I mean, you buy final expenses or funeral insurance, you don’t even get a coffin. There’s nothing to look at, right. You’re buying a promise from somebody to pay you in case anything happens. But I think the greatest insight that we unlocked together was, we as a carrier had to move away from speaking about what we do and what it is that we deliver. And focus more on how we make people feel, thanks to the way we deliver the services that we did. So that shift from the material to the feelings was probably the most impactful contribution from the work we did together.

Michael Maslansky:

Yeah, absolutely. And kind of getting at that idea of what people expected from their insurer when something went wrong. And how to turn that assumption or expectation on its head through what Chubb was able to do.

Ori Ben Yishai:

Exactly.

Michael Maslansky:

Was really, really powerful. That’s great. I’m really glad that we could get little bit of specificity. I think it’ll help people understand the rest of it a lot more.

Michael Maslansky:

And Katie, If I remember correctly, I think that line that Ori just said is that, instead of focusing on, what we do and what it is we deliver, we have to focus on how we make people feel, was directly from a slide you created.

Katie Cronen:

That is true. I am getting memories of PowerPoint right now (laughs). Um, no, it’s really gratifying when you have an insight that you know, works. Because people remember it. But what I remember from that work, too, is, you know, Ori says, “Insurance is really, really hard. But there are a lot of really, really good insurance marketers out there.” The mass market, insurance industry spends a lot of time and energy, and frankly, dollars, in getting their message out there, and I think that was an important part of standing out in a crowded space, is to understand, what does the competition say? Because, I remember doing interviews and understanding just how much of expertise Chubb Insurance has, and just how personalized their offerings are, and just how comprehensive their products are. The challenge is, we looked at the competitive landscape, and every single one of the mass market insurers that they wanted to prove how much better they were, were claiming the same thing, and were spending more money driving home those messages. So even if it was more true for Chubb, you know, if they weren’t buying Superbowl ads and flooding the market with those messages, it probably wasn’t gonna break through. So that was a really important part of being real about the challenge that we were up against, and how we were gonna have to go a different way if we wanted to break through.

Maria Boos:

I think you can’t stress enough the importance of meeting people where they are, and how that’s much more important in connecting with them than sounding like you’re saying something revolutionary. I know, Michael, this is something you say to our teams all the time, that distinction is different from differentiation, and sometimes distinction is going to have much more of an impact. So I think if you are clear in your message, and you know that it connects with your audience, and you deliver it consistently, all those things we’ve been talking about, training internally, externally, getting everybody to feel they’re a part of it, using the message consistently, that is going to make you stand out for sure, more than, you know, fighting the uphill battle to find the one thing you’re gonna say that’s different. Because in a lot of these industries, it’s impossible for your message to be completely unique, but the delivery and consistency of how you connect with the audience, is again, gonna make you stand out for sure.

Michael Maslansky:

Absolutely. And what worked out so well here is that really, in looking at the competitive landscape, there were a ton of organizations that were effectively saying, “We care.” And what we unlocked was this approach that was, they can say that they care, we’re gonna show you how we care. And by bringing that to life, we really had a big impact on how people perceived the brand. So with that, I wanna thank you both, Maria and Katie, for helping me navigate this episode, I thought it was great. I really appreciate it. And thanks to everybody who stuck around and listened. So for more language insights and to be in the loop on all the other fun stuff we’re doing, please follow us on LinkedIn at maslansky + partners and join our mailing list at maslansky.com/connect. That’s it for now. Stay tuned for more episodes of Hearsay, because when it comes to truly effective communications, it’s not what you say, it’s what they hear.