• by Karl Greenberg , November 19, 2008

Global finance and insurance giant Zurich Financial Services Group is launching a new phase of its global ad campaign to generate awareness during the height of the travel season. The experiential marketing push puts first-class concierges in London's Heathrow and Germany's Frankfurt terminals, and full-time concierges in New York's Kennedy, Milan's Malpensa and Madrid's Barajas airports.

The European company says the effort is intended to support its new brand mantra, "delivering when it matters." The theme was introduced with its Zurich "HelpPoint" global campaign last month in 80 countries.

The concierges will help travelers with documents, hotel bookings, auto rentals, city maps, luggage carts, or wrapping paper for gift purchases. New York, Milan and Madrid will also have HelpPoint kiosks with personal concierge capabilities, matching the popularity at London and Frankfurt's HelpPoint kiosks.

The new campaign arose out of research showing that less than 15% of consumers trust insurance companies and that customers find them uncaring, impersonal, and unresponsive.

Sean Kevelighan, Zurich Financial's head of group media relations for North America, says the grassroots campaign is a first for the company. "It speaks well to what our repositioning is all about," he says. "We found that there is severe dissatisfaction among customers with their insurance companies. So our goal is--one, to pique [consumers'] interest, and two, to show that Zurich is an insurance company focused on delivering for them when they need it."

He says Zurich will have living-room-sized venues at each airport that offer services such as document printing and even wrapping of presents and free cleaning products. The areas also have computers, counters and seating areas.

In the U.S., Zurich Financial Group operates through its Farmer's Insurance subsidiary with commercial and business clientele. "Zurich offers a more personal line of services in the UK, and across Europe and the globe," says Kevelighan.

He says that Zurich is planning to run the program at least through 2009, and may expand the program to other international airports and potentially to other public venues.

"I think what we want to do first is make sure it is delivering; if it's successful, we would possibly take that and apply it to different venues."