1st for Women Brand History

Once upon a time, in 2002 in fact, some clever insurance folk at Telesure Investment Holdings (Pty) Ltd (Telesure) realised that the number of women taking out their own insurance policies was increasing all the time and that there was a gap in the market to offer these women an insurance product that catered to their unique requirements. They also surmised that statistically, women are lower insurance risks than their male counterparts based on the fact that they take fewer risks, make more careful decisions, usually stick to the speed limit and frown upon road rage. In addition, the cost of repairs to vehicles crashed by women is on average, lower than the cost of damage caused by men.

Armed with this information, and the fact that at the time the majority of financial services companies still used sales processes and approaches tailored to meet the needs and expectations of the people who historically bought and sold most financial products and services - men, Telesure set out to create a product tailor-made for women that offered them lower insurance premiums because they are better insurance risks.

Before launching this unique product Telesure spent much time pondering the age old question, "What do women want?" The clever people at Telesure openly admitted that they did not know everything and went searching for advice and direction from women consumers and a women marketer, Martha Barletta

Based on their information gathering, they concluded the following:

Successful marketing to women can yield higher returns than marketing to men.
Women are more inclined to long-term brand relationships, and enhanced loyalty means that every marketing rand invested in female customer acquisition results in a higher retention rate.
Word-of-mouth is more prevalent among women. In essence, what women buy-women sell. The reverse however also holds true.
Women resonate with messages focused on similarities, affiliation and win-win mutuality.
Women prefer to be "warmer," and so don't respond as well to messages based on gloating, boasting, bragging or getting ahead.
A woman's sense of humor is different from men's. Women like to identify with the person in the situation and have "Oh, my goodness, your husband does that too" or "that's exactly like me" moments.
Women like adverts that they can identify with, that are not patronising but rather empathic and respectful.
Women process information differently, and use both qualitative and quantitative criteria to make decisions.
Women ask lots of questions, and tend to keep asking until they understand the information thoroughly.
For many women, the buying process matters as much as the product. Women are holistic thinkers, and identify a good product with a comfortable, pleasant sales process.
Women are loyal shoppers and will buy again from the same source if the experience and products are a fit.
Women have too much to do and too little time to do it. Creating a sales process that respects the multiple hats women wear and the many commitments they make will go a long way toward creating a long and fruitful relationship.
As author Deborah Tannen once said: men want to transact while women want to establish a relationship.
Women have a need for long-term commitment, a need for connectivity and a sense of belonging. To win her over, the finance company should get to know her, offer long-term problem solving strategies and focus on after-sales service "the brand must talk to her, not at her and the personal advisors must relate to a women's needs, not necessarily be a woman.
Products aimed at women also need to meet women's needs and cannot merely be a generic product in pink packaging. Women will see through this for the ruse that it is.

So ultimately, in order to successfully market this product to women, Telesure needed to recognise the subtle, yet very important differences in women's buying styles and create advertising and sales strategies that appeal to women. Also, in order to get the right marketing messages across, Telesure needed to have the right people in place who understood this segment and who are passionate about service delivery. In June 2003, 1st for Women Insurance Brokers was born.

It launched to the market as a holistic lifestyle support solution rather than a generic insurance product offering with a value proposition that included comprehensive car and home insurance and free value-added products that met the needs of women.Its value-added products took into account the modern women's overall wellness requirements, including the physical, emotional and financial and included:

Exposure: Protection in the event of accidental exposure to HIV/Aids,
trauma counseling,
free roadside, medical and household assistance; and
free handbag cover to the value of R3000 with home contents insurance.

For the business woman, 1st for Women launched a business insurance product, specially aimed at the SME sector. This insurance product covers 24 different types of SME's in South Africa, which in turn are divided into four main segments. The four market segments identified by 1st for Women are business, office, practice and professional. Each product contains the correct combination of traditional policy terms and conditions tailor-made to ensure that a woman-owned small or medium business is adequately looked after from an insurance point of view.

1st for Women also established the 1st for Women Insurance Trust. The main goal of this Trust is to uplift and help the women of our country.

1st for Women donates a portion of its income to this Trust. 1st for Women's clients have a say as to the nature of the beneficiaries who receive funding from the Trust by virtue of the fact that a poll is run on the 1st for Women website giving visitors to the site the option to select organisations they would like to see the Trust support. The indication is certainly that the Trust should be supporting the organisations that assist survivors of abuse.

Since its inception the 1st for Women Insurance Trust has donated millions of rand to charities and NGOs that focus on the development, empowerment and support of women including the Mamelodi Thuthuzela Care Centre, the National Network on Violence Against Women, the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children campaign, the Ikhaya Lethemba charity, the Leigh Matthews Trust and POWA (People Opposing Woman Abuse).

1st for Women's initial advertising strategy, featuring some of 1st for Women's employees, was rather traditional and depicted women in lifestyle situations.This campaign ran for almost two years.

When the effectiveness of 1st for Women's traditional campaign started to decline, 1st for Women introduced the "Why we insure women only" campaign. With this campaign 1st for Women sought to break the clutter that exists in financial services advertising. The campaign was cutting-edge and controversial, women, and men, sat up and took notice. It attracted a lot of attention and resulted in a step change in the number of leads generated.

The TV advert for the "Why we insure women only" campaign created quite a stir and was awarded a Bronze at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival and a Bronze at The Loerie Awards.In addition, the director of the advert, Dean Blumberg from Freshwater Films shared second prize in the CFP-E/Shots Young Director Awards in the Non-European Broadcast category.

Created by Black River F.C and Freshwater Films, the advert featured three young fellows having a laugh and 'taking the piss' out of their mate who interrupted their road trip for a comfort stop. When their car suddenly accelerates off a cliff, South African TV viewers are reminded why 1st for Women insures women only.

The "why we insure women only" campaign ran for about a year, and because of its success, 1st for Women decided that the next campaign would have a similar irreverent tone.

The pay-off line for the next campaign was "men don't get it" - men don't get the problem in the situations depicted in the advertising, nor do they get up to 40% off on their car insurance. This campaign also yielded tremendous results for the brand.

In March 2007, 1st for Women launched the "If men were woman we'd insure them" campaign.Taking a cue from men are from Mars and woman are from Venus, this campaign highlighted that despite many years of progress in overcoming gender stereotypes - women and men are different and these differences make women and men prone to certain types of behaviour.

Advertising and selling a policy is one thing, it is however quite another thing to keep/retain a client, especially in an industry notorious for its churn and price sensitivity. With this in mind, 1st for Women has an ongoing challenge to maintain relationships with its clients and to meet and exceed their expectations.

In order to understand what these expectations are 1st for Women conducts both qualitative and quantitative research on a regular basis. The purpose of the research is to find out what its customers' expectations are at key areas of interaction. Findings have included:

During the sales and fulfillment process, women said that they needed to ensure they are well informed before making a purchase decision. With this in mind, 1st for Women sales consultants have been trained to give women as much information as they require in order to make an informed decision. Also because 1st for Women understands that women do a lot of information gathering before they make up their minds, the sales consultants are told not to push for a sale. When a woman makes up her mind to buy a product in a non pressurised situation, chances are that she will remain loyal and continue to buy additional products from that supplier.
1st for Women generally requires a vehicle to be inspected once cover is taken. Women felt that this stage was very important as it was the first time that they "met the brand." They also felt that they would like to get some value at this stage, for example, a 10 point check should be done on their vehicle to make sure that everything was in order. They also said that they would like to be met by a 1st for Women representative at the inspection centre and given a soft-touch gift. Women also appreciate touches such as coffee machines and kids play areas at inspection centres.
Regarding the submission of claims, it was interesting to note that clients said that they would prefer dealing with women at this stage. They felt women were more likely to assist in reducing the stress they would be feeling, and provide adequate support and empathy during the interaction.
On the other hand, women felt that if they called the 1st for Women assist line they would prefer to deal with a male consultant. According to 1st for Women clients, the reason for this is that men remain calmer in these types of situations.

Another key interaction with clients is 1st for Women's lifestyle networking events which are run on a quarterly basis.The 1st for Women Lifestyle Networking events have become somewhat of an institution and were launched so that likeminded women could meet, network, talk and ultimately grow and learn.

The response to 1st for Women to date has been exceptional. And it is not just the need for an insurance solution for women that is growing, it is the need for the supportive products that come with insurance, that make the difference between a holistic lifestyle support solution and a mere product offering. That's where the 1st for Women assist programmes such as roadside, medical, legal and emergency have made a real difference, providing peace of mind for wives, mothers and career women, allowing them to know that they really are covered for every eventuality.