Professional sports teams have such cachet with a certain block of the public that pretty much anything they do can find sponsorship. Aon and Manchester United just signed a sponsorship deal that has the British multinational risk-management, insurance and consulting company putting its name on the team’s training facilities for the next eight years.

Along with that, Aon’s name will also grace the training shirts of the ManU players and be attached to any of the team’s pre-season tours during the next eight seasons, such as “Tour 2013 presented by Aon in Asia Pacific.” If that weren’t enough, Manchester United’s business network will also use Aon for its “talent development, health, risk management, retirement and data & analytics.”Continue reading...

MetLife is taking its buddies in the Peanuts gang to Walmart, as it pitches a whole new way to buy insurance — in a box, with Snoopy on the cover, which can be picked up in the baby or pharmacy section:Continue reading...

Progressive is auctioning off the white gown worn on the red carpet in the brand's magazine advertising by Flo (aka comedian Stephanie Courtney) for charity. The custom-made dress, featuring 1,000 hand-placed crystals by designer Candice Held, is being auctioned on eBay to raise money for Dress for Success through October 4.

"Keep Good Going" is the tagline and rallying cry for New York Life's new campaign. The Facebook announcement includes a Twitter hashtag and the call to action, "What inspires you? There is good all around us, and at New York Life, we believe in perpetuating that good. The people, words, videos and stories on this page have touched and inspired us. #KeepGoodGoing"

The Facebook and Twitter push promotes to a microsite featuring "found" video and photographs in "Snapshots" that highlight a cross-section of ages and customers. The digital hub for the campaign also invites visitors to ponder life lessons such as "#27 Be the man your dog thinks you are" and then share the life lessons that means the most to them.Continue reading...

"Don’t buy insurance from Progressive."

No brand wants to see anyone on the Internet telling others not to buy its product. But as any multimillion dollar brand has come to surely experience, there are a lot of haters in the world and talk on the Internet is cheap. But the case with Progressive Insurance is different and its bungled handling of the criticism has turned what should have been one of those dismal, forgettable cases of the insurance industry being the stupid greedy insurance industry everyone knows it is, into a PR disaster that may do the brand genuine harm.Continue reading...

Auto-insurance companies have already gone quite far down the road toward swapping detailed information about their policyholders' driving habits for premium discounts, using all sorts of onboard devices including GPS and other technologies. Privacy advocates, naturally, have raised some concerns about this practice.

But now, Allstate is taking this discipline at least one step further by enlisting interested employees and agency owners in a massive test of its Drive Wise telematics-based system. Already available in Illinois, Ohio and Arizona, Drive Wise will be rolled out to inside participants in additional states this year to gather still more data that, the insurance company says, will help it "identify the safer driving habits that can earn participating customers driving discounts on their car insurance." The safer the driver, the bigger the savings.Continue reading...

Who said the little guys lack imagination and moxie? Hiscox insurance services target small businesses — direct, online, and in real-time. But how to get that message out and stand out from the crowd? Scripted web video programming — with a sense of humor, and some heavy-hitting talent.

This summer the brand is launching season two of original "entrepreneurial comedy series" Leap Year, the story of five friends who lose their jobs, follow their dreams and start their own business.Continue reading...

Nationwide Insurance doesn't think it gets enough credit from customers and other consumers for being "on your side" in auto-insurance matters. Cue a new branding campaign tied to the biggest sports event on the calendar and to one of America's best-liked actresses to make the point.

On Friday July 27th, during the prime-time telecast of the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics on NBC, Nationwide will debut new TV campaign featuring the distinctive voice of actress Julia Roberts, whose Lancôme campaign for L'Oréal was banned in the U.K. last year for airbrushing.

"'Nationwide Is On Your Side' is a familiar tagline and jingle, but not many people understand exactly what it means," Matt Jauchius, Nationwide's chief marketing and strategy officer, said in a press release about the new "Join the Nation" campaign. "Our goal wth this campaign is to tell the story of who we are as a company and what our On Your Side promise truly stands for — doing what's right for our members and protecting the things and the people they hold dear."Continue reading...