multipage
What's in a name? No matter what mail sector we're talking about, the particular name of the company, magazine, nonprofit, etc. is often the first impression left on the prospect. The branding, reputation, recent history and other variables related to that name contribute to this impression, good or bad.
For the insurance sector, which I'm examining this month in our Who's Mailing What! Archive, that name is central to its members' selling positions. Therefore, if the insurance company is AIG (American International Group), then it would be in the company's interest to either bury the name in the mail piece or change it altogether. After its massive bailout from the government, AIG executives still partied like it was 1999 and as of Tuesday, AIG shares slumped to an all-time low of $1.08. Former CEO of AIG, Hank Greenberg, said it best, "They've really lost their way ... AIG was the largest, most successful insurance company in history ... it's hard to understand how it could fall off a cliff that quickly and that far."
So while it tries to recover and rebuild, the insurance giant clearly aims to hide its presence in the direct mail that it sends out. For example, AIG bought travel insurer Travel Guard a few years ago and switched its name to AIG Travel Guard. But with its recent notoriety, AIG dropped its own name and now calls it only Travel Guard in its 6" x 9" self-mailer. And frankly, it's a topnotch self-mailer, both eye-catching and with engaging copy. The four-color outer shows a picture of the earth from space, with three dots on the globe with lines drawn to copy. One reads, "You are here"; the next says, "Your nonrefundable deposit is here"; the other reads, "your flight is here"; it ends in big white letters on a red background—like something you'd see from a magazine—with "WHAT NOW?" Folding open the mailer reveals all the reasons to get Travel Guard (Archive code #455-179427-0811).
Also under the AIG umbrella is 21st Century Insurance, which again used to use the AIG name throughout its #10 mailing. Its most recent effort, however, features a letter that's identical to previous efforts for the auto insurance branch of AIG, yet there's the conspicuous absence of the AIG name. In fact, you have to search to find the name, which is mentioned in very small type at the bottom of one of the pages, but in written-out form: "Insurance Provided by a Subsidiary of American International Group, Inc." (Archive code #420-414995-0811).
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