What’s keeping Lori Rayner up at night?

In this series, we ask top industry execs and marketers across the country about their biggest fears and concerns. What are the things of marketing nightmares? Last week, we caught up with Lori Rayner, assistant vice president of brand at Co-operators to discuss the biggest problems she faces.

Rayner oversees and executes the insurer’s brand strategy to drive business impact. This includes governance, programs and campaigns, and corporate social media strategy. Rayner was also an almost 15-year veteran of HSBC, where she was most recently the bank’s VP and head of marketing for wealth and personal banking. 

What’s keeping you up at night these days?

A lot keeps me up at night! Marketing is always evolving and a very exciting place to be, otherwise we’d all be bored. We’re never bored and there’s never a shortage of things to do. But I think things like navigating the complex landscape of consumer concerns is always very challenging. Right now is a very interesting time for Canadians, with lots of challenges that they face like inflation, sustainability, planning for retirement or other big issues like auto theft. It’s really impacted Canadians’ consumer confidence, as well as their decision-making. My goal is to not only meet these challenges head on, but also reassure and inspire customers as well as the communities that we serve.

Insurance is often dogged by perceptions it’s boring. What do you think that marketers from other categories don’t appreciate about insurance?

Marketing in financial industries has really evolved…We’ve gotten smarter and sharper with our creative. I also think that working in financial services is a very saturated market and it’s very difficult to cut through the clutter and differentiate, especially when you have very high regulations. It’s a very challenging thing. I am sure it’s always fun to market some CPG product, and it resonates with consumers, but when you run a program for the financial industry that really resonates with the segment and cuts through the noise, that’s true magic. You’re taking maybe a topic that’s not deemed to be as fun. Making it resonate is tough, [but] a challenge we love to take on.

How do you separate your work from giants like Sun Life, Desjardins or Manulife?

We definitely go head-to-head with some competitors with incredibly deep pockets and for sure, we don’t have the same deep pockets they have. However, I have a saying, ‘I don’t try to outspend the competition, I do try to out-smart them.’ What that means is that for every dollar that I spend, it works as hard as I can make it. I really try to know that with my media [and creative] strategy, I am going for a high impact, something differentiated, unique, which draws smiles or that will resonate. We [agencies, Epitaph and Angry Butterfly] really partner up to challenge each other and try and cut above the noise. Something we recently did was NHL commercials, an example of how we are showing up a bit differently. That idea was started by Epitaph, which came to us, after four Canadian teams made the NHL playoffs and we knew we had an active Canadian audience who would be watching. We thought, we want to be there, but if we are going to be there, we know it’s a saturated advertising platform and a lot of (financial institutions) are going to be there. So we said we needed to do something contextual that would stand out.

How is AI affecting your marketing?

I do think AI is playing an interesting role both from an efficiency and effectiveness perspective. I know various creative teams are looking at how they can generate the right image… and it’s a very cost-effective way to create images to work hand-in-hand with your creative concept.

I still always believe in human intervention, however. [AI lets] your team focus on the right things and spend less time on say, searching for the right image. Same thing for writing. You don’t just take an AI-generated script or client communication, and run with that. But it’s useful for ideation and approaching things from a different perspective. I do think there’s lots of opportunity from a creative, project management and meeting efficiency side. I heard that there are some AI tools which will take a three-hour meeting and drill it down to what you need to know in 10 minutes. It’s exciting and we are keeping an eye on it.

How is sustainability affecting your category and how does it impact how you market?

This isn’t new for us and we’re not just jumping on the journey now. Co-operators is a co-operative and we really look at our impact [beyond] the financial results and the numbers, and we look at how we affect the planet, people and communities that we serve. It’s a triple bottom line business.

The conversations around the table make me proud. We have taken so many actions as a company, whether it’s sustainable claims, impact investing, even how we manage our partnerships. However, we have been a bit humble from the marketing perspective, [and] there are huge opportunities. Consumers are looking for companies who are more purpose-led. Three quarters of Canadians say it’s critically important for companies to manage their waste, for example, and more than half of Canadians were unaware that damaged items from insurance waste goes to landfill.

[Co-operators’ Claim Changers campaign] is an opportunity to educate consumers and be a rallying cry that little things can make a difference. When everyone collectively, works together, that can have a great impact.