I have a friend whose husband works in insurance. He’s an expert, the guy you want to call before you take out holiday insurance or decide on a home and contents policy. It’s just that most people don’t know about his day job—insurance gets such a bad rap he tells people he’s in mediation!
So when I was moving house recently for my next life chapter, I approached the insurance side of things with trepidation. I figured there would be a stack of googling, weeks of comparing prices, red tape and frustrating phone calls to help desks (although as a hard core marketer I always love seeing different business models and approaches to securing customers.
Ha. My doomsday scenario could not have been further from the truth. And it was mostly thanks to discovering Honey Insurance when I was shopping around for new contents insurance.
Honey does things differently. I’d never heard of them before but was happy with their competitive quote and their mission. They promise ‘smarter home insurance helping you prevent avoidable accidents’ and their positioning statement is they are turning insurance on its head.
Literally. No sooner had I signed up than I received a VIP invite to come to the Honey House.
The Honey House is an experiential marketing strategy used where customers attend an event to visit a custom designed upside down house. (https://www.honeyinsurance.com/blog/heres-whats-up-with-the-upside-down-honey-house/) The business banks on that being such a novelty that you take lots of Insta worthy images while allowing Honey to highlight their mission to eliminate the 50% of insurance claims which are preventable.
I love seeing a business positioning on being different and I love that Honey uses experiential marketing as their strategy to amplify their difference. It’s a perfect strategy for millennials who are seeking out something cool and innovative along with reliable.
Honey also gives a $500 cash voucher to the best photo taken in the Melbourne Honey House and tagging the business—a cheap and pretty organic way of encouraging lots of user generated content.
“We give our customers free technology and services from day 1 to keep homes safer, which rewards them with a lower price on their insurance,” says CEO and founder Richard Joffe, who called his business “smart” home insurance.
Underwritten by RACQ, Honey raised $15.5m, the largest seed investment in Australian history, from industry leaders such as AGL, Metricon, Mirvac, PEXA and many others, according to Joffe.
The idea of an upside down house as a marketing strategy was enough to see me bundling my daughters into the car for a trip to the city to learn about our new contents insurance. Alice even got off school early and Lucy met us after knocking off from her fashion job.
We had a laugh together and learned a few tips. And it was a first for us—a family trip to an insurance pop up. The message? Businesses that try something different and leverage social media in fun and eye-catching ways get noticed.
I’m hoping the back end service matches the front of house! Kudos to Honey Insurance for bringing a bit of sting and zing to the insurance industry.