Selling A Promise

Vincent:
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Stirista’s The Marketing Stir. I am your happy host, Vincent Pietrafesa, the Vice President of B2B Products and Partnerships here at Stirista. It is a beautiful day here in New York City. Little chilly, but the sun is out. But before I talk about that, let’s talk about Stirista just for a few seconds. That’s all. We are a marketing technology company. We own our own business to business data, business to consumer data. We have our own technology, email platform, demand side platform. We help you get new customers and retain your current customers, both on the consumer and B2B side. Email me, vincent@stirista.com. That is how confident I am. I just gave you my email address. Boy, do you use it. Not always for what I intend it. Hey, but you’re listening, and this guest is awesome. She’s in the tri-state area. She’s doing great things. Please, a warm Marketing Stir welcome to the Director of Marketing Strategy at Progressive Insurance. Yep. Heard of that before? You sure did. We’re diving deep. Ladies and gentlemen, Alicia Holt. What’s going on, Alicia?

Alicia:
Nothing much. Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here today

Vincent:
We are so happy, right? You’re in the Connecticut area, right? You’re close by.

Alicia:
right over the border. I come to New York all the time. I’m always there

Vincent:
I know your area there. I won’t say the exact area. I don’t wanna, you know, but, you know, that would be creepy if people are like, “Oh, okay.” But I used to go into the Connecticut area, have a great time, then everyone comes over to New York because you know, you could drink later. And so that’s what people do. I grew up in Port Chester, New York, and, that’s what a lot of people did, right on the Greenwich border there, and, it was great. But enough about me. Alicia, everyone has heard of Progressive, Insurance, all the amazing commercials, all the brand awareness. We could talk about that for hours. But if people don’t know it, you live under a rock. But tell us about the company and then your role specifically.

Alicia:
Sure. I work for Progressive Insurance, obviously. A company, we’ll actually have our 90-year anniversary next year, so been around for a really long time. A leader in the auto and property space for insurance, and, one of the most iconic brands in the US. So Superstore, Dr. Rick or, to everyone out there, the don’t be your parents guy. I hear that more often than not. My role at Progressive, I’ve been there not quite three years, but almost. I’m the director of marketing strategy, and my job is to make sure I interrupt your football games with commercials that make you laugh, and be happy that you were interrupted. So I manage the acquisition, piece of the business. So filling that funnel, trying to get new people all the time, that’s an engine that’s always on. and those are my responsibilities. So those campaigns and those TV commercials, there’s a huge team involved in getting that out of the door. If you don’t like them, just wait till the, wait till the next one. You’ll like the next one. So super excited about that. So that’s, that’s my role at Progressive.

Vincent:
And that’s awesome. Yeah, you know, those commercials for me, in such a good way, are ingrained in my head. I love like, you know, it’s just like once you get, you have Flow and then you just flip it on us and you have this new character, which I love, where it’s like… ‘Cause I’m a dad now. I, and I find myself a lot of the times Alicia saying things where I’m like, “Oh my God, my mom used to say that.” My, my… I was like, “Am I really that guy now?” And it’s so funny. I love those commercials. But let’s take it back a little bit, right? How did you get started in marketing? Was it like a direct path right into marketing? Was it you studied something else and now you’re here? We’d love to hear about it

Alicia:
Yeah, it was a little bit of a winding path. I actually did not start off in marketing. My undergraduate degree is actually in food science, nutrition, and chemistry. I thought I wanted to be a dietician. and then, I thought I wanted to be in product development, and so I, got my undergrad degree at Alabama A&M University, that’s where I’m from originally. And, I went to Penn State to study flavor chemistry. and you know, I just had this epiphany one day. I was like, “You know what?” I was… I think I had to get up at like 2:00 AM or 3:00 AM to like turn off some lab equipment. I was running a, a lab test. And I remember sitting there just tired and thinking, “I’m not even curing cancer. Like, why?” Like, “I don’t even like this that much. What am I doing?” But I went back to the product development. We had one project in my senior year, and it involved us developing a product from beginning to end. And a part of that was the marketing and what’s the business part of it, and how do you, how do you sell this? What’s the proposition? And I remember really liking that part of it. and I enjoyed food science, but as I started to get further and realize that this is going to be your career, I was like, “I don’t, I don’t know if this is my jam.” so, one day, ironically, the, business school was right across the walkway from the food science building. so I walked over one day and I was like, what do I need to do to get in here?” And so I talked to the right people. I was in a good position. Usually, you have to have some business experience. I was school, school. But it was four of us that did not have business experience that were in that class. So that was, that was how I did it, and I majored in marketing and entrepreneurship, and that’s how I started off in marketing. But I still wanted to stay in food. I really did love food. So my goal was to be in marketing and then, you know, go to a food company and work there.

Vincent:
Yeah. Well, that’s like, I love your career path because you not only, like, you started doing one thing and studying that in school and then pivoted, and then for a lot of your career you were doing a mixture of both, right? So you’ve got a… You spent over a decade, I would say, in CPG and food science. And that, Alicia, those are industries where the product is tangible, sensory, right? what’s the shift that you had to make really because your… Insurance is an invisible product, right? until you kinda, you know, you don’t, right, you use it when you need it, and you always hope you don’t need it. But talk to us about that shift that you made

Alicia:
It was… I don’t even know that I really understood the huge differences between a tangible product and an intangible product when I came over to Progressive. I knew it was gonna be a bit of a challenge, but that’s what’s, what attracted me to it. I have been and worked at a few industries, and that’s been very purposeful in my career, and I was super excited to try insurance. And when you get in it, though, it is, it is tough. I’m selling a promise. I don’t have a product to sell you. I’m selling you a promise. If something happens, you know, we’re there to financially protect you against whatever could happen to your car, to your home, whatever products that we sell. And there’s a, that’s a big difference. There’s a lot of things in a highly regulated industry that I don’t have control over. I don’t control my price. I don’t even control all the products that are developed. I don’t control what I can and can’t say. I can’t even say that I’m better than another insurer. Like, I can’t say that legally. And I was like, “What? CPG, that’s our whole thing. We’re better than someone else.” So, it was a different challenge, but it’s been so great. And even that, even though I’m further in my career, I love to learn, and this is a different kind of a learning tool for me, and it’s been great. But it’s, it’s a challenging product. It’s a product that everybody has to have, nobody likes, and nobody wants to use. Who wants to buy something and hope they never have to use it? It’s the worst day if you use it. So it’s an interesting kind of space to be in

Vincent:
Yeah. Well, like you said, Alicia, there’s … you turn on the television, you turn on, you look at billboards, email, everything. insurance is one of those brands that they’re powerful. it’s, insurance is one of those industries, I should say, that’s powerful, and Progressive, it’s, it’s in the, it’s in the zeitgeist. It’s in the ma- it’s in the mainstream. It’s, it … So talk about there’s Flo, Dr. Rick, and then I really know it, like NFL partnerships ’cause I watch a lot of football, big football fan. That’s kind of all running at the same time. You know, how do you kind of ensure that the brand stays cohesive rather than fragmented?

Alicia:
Honestly, that’s a huge challenge at Progressive of making sure that all of the work that you’re doing works together cohesively. I’m gonna be honest with you, that’s something that I think even today we continue to get better and better at but it’s always a challenge and it’s always in the back of my mind. I’m thinking about what’s happening in the marketplace what do people need to hear? Who specifically do I need to speak to? How have the challenges changed for people every day? Because when you think about insurance, it’s a financial services industry. I know many people may not think about it that way, but we are financial protection for people, and as much as people don’t want to think about it, they have to because they work too hard, they have too many things to protect, and they wanna make the right choice in who they’re doing that for. So my job is really to show how Progressive can show up in their lives in the right way, in a resonant way while also bringing a little bit of joy and a little bit of happiness. People love the commercials. It’s fun. It’s funny. And I think that is one of the things that, you know, I’ve never worked for a brand that not only had, like, one iconic campaign, you got two. You have, like, Dr. Rick, you have Superstore, and they do different things for the brand. They speak to different audiences. And so it’s really about collectively are we hitting our primary targets? Are we being broadly resonant? And is the brand showing up in the way that we want it to show up?

Vincent:
Yeah, and you also, you mentioned you need, like, you need a reason there, you know, recommend a partnership and celebrity endorsements are, aren’t always the right fit. What’s kinda your litmus test for deciding if a sponsor aligns with your brand’s niche?

Alicia:
For me, it is really what is this partnership or sponsorship or celebrity going to allow my brand to do that I couldn’t do on my own? And with Progressive, that’s a really high bar. We have a decent sized marketing budget. We have really broad awareness. We have these iconic campaigns. I mean, sometimes we have celebrities that come to us and I’m like, “Well, people know, more people know Flo than they kinda know you sometimes.” And it’s like, you have to be able to add to the business. I think cultural relevance is always great but you have to find a reason for being, you have to find a reason for showing up in people’s faces, and you have to drive something and give the brand something that I can’t do on my own, I can’t manufacture on my own. And with a brand like Progressive, there’s not a lot of partnerships and celebrities that can elevate the brand beyond where it is today. So it’s a very selective process when we’re thinking about that

Vincent:
Well, yeah, and you know, with Progressive, I don’t really even think of like celebrity. I think Flo, I’m like whoever, I don’t know who the actress is or the spokesperson is, but sh- that’s like jackpot. You know? Like, she’s so known and she, and then now this… I, I kind of recognize Dr. Rick from other things, but you know, that’s so, that’s awesome. I love that commercial. It’s so, , it’s so funny. Let’s talk about, you know, let’s get to the marketing aspect of it, right, Alicia? ‘Cause your potential audience is like 80% or more of the driving population. How do you identify like specific pockets where Progressive can be nimble and win over the, you know, over the competitors?

Alicia:
Well, I think that, you know, what we’ll say at Progressive is there’s no customer that we can’t work with, right? And so you kinda hit the nail on the head. You know, I remember, you know, sometimes we say we want everybody with a car, right? If you have that vision, it’s really up to me to figure out, or up to the marketing team to figure out how to segment that population because when you’re talking about insurance and insurance needs, a lotta times insurance is a huge portion of a person’s budget for the month, for the year. And so, you know, where they are in life is a really big, meaningful part of that. So it’s not really about we only want this person or we only want that person. It’s about how are we segmenting those people to make sure that whatever messages we’re giving to them are resonant for where they are in life and their needs. And I think that’s more so the bigger challenge than just kinda selecting, you know, who we wanna go after. It’s about that resonance

Vincent:
Yeah. And I remember when you and I were talking, you’re, you’re already onto 2027. You’re already working on campaigns and how have you and your team what are you preparing for? What, you know,

Alicia:
I think it’s really not about being worried about the change because we know change is constant. But we have really good analytics. We have lots of information and data, always listening to our economic reports, seeing what’s happening, because I’m not just, I’m not really planning for the now, I’m planning for, okay, so where will people be in a year? What will they need to hear? Will they be more strapped for cash? Will they be more will it be a flush year? Will there be more shopping because of that? So really it’s about kind of ear to the ground. We listen to people. We listen to what people are saying. We do a lot of social listening. We do a lot of understanding of what our customers are saying. We’re doing a lot of listening in terms of just industry shifts and changes because we need to understand what that implies for the future, and we need to make sure that we have the right products, the right offering, and the right messaging to meet those needs for the future

Vincent:
I love it. I love how you broke that down. So Alicia, talk to us about it. Progressive’s a huge organization, right? It’s like over 50,000, 60,000 employees.

Alicia:
yeah, still growing, yeah

Vincent:
that’s awesome. So how do you maintain, you know, fun and creative team culture while managing the complexities of, you know, mass media, global acquisition? Like, it’s… Talk to us about that

Alicia:
Yeah, you know what? I would love to say it’s all me but it’s not. I work with a really amazing group of people. As much content as Progressive puts out, we really do a lot of stuff in-house. We are our own machine. We buy our media in-house. We do our marketing in-house. We have our creative agency. We do have an external agency of record as well, but we do a lot of work in-house, and we have to stay connected. We have to stay connected, and I don’t really know what it is about the Progressive hiring process, but culturally it’s just a really strong company. Some companies always talk about their core values, but Progressive really does live it. And they’re a Midwest company. They really are Midwest nice. Sometimes I’m in meetings, I’m like, “We can’t say no.” And people love

Vincent:
Midwest nice. I love

Alicia:
Yeah, it is very Midwest nice, and I truly enjoy… I really can’t think of a person that I don’t enjoy working with. And so I think part of that is really not from me, it’s the top-down culture at Progressive, and it just kind of permeates the entire organization, and therefore the marketing group as well

Vincent:
Well, that’s awesome. That’s great to hear. I mean, we kind of, we preach that here at Stirista as well. We really, we truly enjoy working with each other, but we are a very small fraction of that. To do that at that level is very impressive. Let’s talk about, let’s go back to the CPG days. , What’s a lesson from, you know, the grocery aisle, so to speak, right, from the CPG days that you found surprisingly effective in this world?

Alicia:
if I’m gonna be honest, I think marketing in general, the way, the approach, I don’t care whether I was in home care, food, alcohol, and now financial services, I think the process to getting to the right thing is pretty similar across the board. but I think one thing that I don’t think I maybe, I maybe took for granted or didn’t realize how similar it was moving to an intangible product is the amount of time I don’t have to seal the deal. When you’re at the shelf, people are walking by stuff, you gotta catch their attention really quickly. I don’t even have a physical product to catch their attention. I have to catch their attention in the digital space or on TVs where they’re, you know, doing other things around the house. You really have a short window to make yourself known, relevant, and have them pause enough to get the message that you’re trying to get across, and I think that’s the same thing with having a product on the shelf. You got a few seconds. That’s why packaging is so important, to capture their attention and to get them to even pick up the thing and read the package to see if that’s what they want. And it’s the same thing with the TV ad. I got a few seconds. I got a few seconds to grab you. And the digital space is even worse with the amount of clutter that’s kind of there. So I think that’s probably one thing that’s really similar across the two

Vincent:
Well, yeah, I feel like, you know, CPG, it is about the- it’s branding, right? It’s, it’s a lot of those, you know, I go back to, like, the taglines, the slogans, the jingles, but it is the packaging, you know? And the packaging has to stand out, has to be there. It, you know, shelf space, where it is. It’s kinda… It’s interesting. But, you know, I feel that Progressive stands out with… You know, it’s not like, you know, a lot of other places have, like, one… A lot of competitors, I should say. Like, maybe they have one character or one theme. You- you’re, you’re rocking out a few, and it’s like that’s what you wanna see. Nowadays, I feel like commercials, the television’s, like, you either better get them with humor or you better pull on the, the heartstrings, right? so yeah, you’re… and I love what you’re doing there. What, you know, what could, like, CPG companies learn from you, Progressive, that you’re kinda using with humor? I feel like a lot of CPGs not pulling on the, on the humor card.

Alicia:
I think if I’m going back to those days, what I can say is I don’t think CPG spends enough time on their audience. I think we spend a lot of time on the physical thing, the line extensions, what flavor are you gonna do next? What’s the packaging gonna look like? What am I gonna do with my shipping and my COGS, and what’s my trade marketing plan? Am I doing four for fives? Spend a lot of time there, and even your marketing is very relegated to the physical thing sometimes. But really understanding who you’re speaking to and how you make your stuff re- ’cause you can make your product relevant to anyone almost if you understand what their needs are, if you understand what the barriers are, you understand what makes them tick. And so I think the one thing that, And I have to do that because I don’t have a physical product to satisfy them. They can’t try my product. I have to know who they are to know how to resonate with them. And so I think that’s something that maybe CPG, if I were to go back tomorrow or go, in the future work on CPG again, that would probably be where I would dig deeper of truly understanding the audience that I’m selling my products to

Vincent:
Well, nice. But Progressive and insurance, they need you right now. So, yeah, I we

Alicia:
I won’t, I don’t plan on going anywhere. Hopefully they don’t kick me. I think things are

Vincent:
no, we want you staying right here. But so, ’cause last question about, you know, kinda the marketing side, work- the work side, then we get to know you personally. If you ever heard any of our podcasts, then we have a section, let’s get to know Alicia personally, right? So but Alicia, in an industry that, traditional industry, right, like insurance, how do you constantly try to stay fresh? There’s like a next generation of homeowners and drivers where, you know, look, I’m 47 years old, but you hear these younger kids where like, “I don’t know if I’m gonna own a home. I could just, you know, you know, rent. I could just do this.” Well, you still need renters insurance, right? So but talk to us how that constantly changes and how you’re already, you know, planning for the future

Alicia:
I would say that the next generation is different. they don’t like to be advertised to. And I think Some of the things that we’re doing is trying to always, again, be on the precipice of what’s coming. So new platforms, understanding how they speak, making sure our language is relevant even figuring out how to- how we’re properly matching campaigns to audiences. You know, Dr. Rick doesn’t work for everybody. So what does work and how do we get there? And so I think it’s gonna be, especially with the advent of AI becoming more and more integrated into kind of how we go to market, not even necessarily just the creative piece, but all of these platforms that we work with from Google to YouTube to all of these platforms, it makes personalization that much more important. People don’t wanna be generally marketed to. I think in the past you didn’t really have a choice. You kind of had to have this general message and it went out to everybody, and you had to kind of hope it hit. But I think personalization and getting to people in the places and spaces that they patron, I think passion points become that much more important, so not bringing them to you, but going to them. I think it’s really about not being afraid to evolve. I think sometimes you can rest on your laurels and say, “Oh, this is how we’ve always done it.” I’ve been in marketing for, what, 15 years now. It’s changed from even five years ago. So if you’re a brand that’s afraid to try something and do something different, you’re going to be left behind because things are evolving. And so I think for us it’s really about how do we stay aligned with the audiences and where they are and their needs at the time, even if it doesn’t align with where we’ve always been.

Vincent:
Yeah. I mean, look how much COVID kind of changed marketing, right? With the QR codes and all of that now, and the way people are viewing you know, advertising. It’s it- it’s changed tremendously. Let’s go with some fun ones here, Alicia. Have you ever met Dr. Rick or Flo in person?

Alicia:
You know what? I don’t go to the shoots. Isn’t it crazy? I don’t go to the shoots.

Vincent:
not at an annual conference or anything? No?

Alicia:
No, I don’t, I’m not in Ohio, so usually I’m not there when they’re there. So I set my set this year. I was gonna go to some shoots so that I can meet. So it’s Bill Glass and it’s Stephanie Courtney, that’s the Stephanie Courtney’s Flow. So I don’t meet them because I don’t go to the shoots. I should go to the shoots. And but they’re extremely nice people. Stephanie especially, I know. Everyone raves about her. She is completely delightful person from everything that I know. But I don’t go to… I think once you’ve been to a shoot, you kinda been to them all and

Vincent:
yeah. bit of one, bit of a – yeah.

Alicia:
back all the time. But be- but this year I’m going to make it a goal to make sure that I go to Ohio and that I meet Stephanie or I go to one of the, one of the shoots. We do so many

Vincent:
All right, we’re gonna do a follow-up episode of the Marketing Stir audience with Alicia, and we’re gonna ask her I’m kidding. so Alicia, let’s, there’s a question we ask all of our guests, and if we ever miss one, boy do they let us know. And this is about LinkedIn. You and I still have to LinkedIn you know, we’ll make it official you know, our friendship here. But what’s some, you know, you- at a company like yours and a title like yours, right, you’re probably… people soliciting you all the time. And what’s a message that resonates with you, and what’s, you know, one or more that are just like, “Nope, you’re not getting my attention”?

Alicia:
I know people are reaching out in apologies ’cause I think I have several people that I have not friended yet. But I think what bothers me is the generic-ness of things. Like, I can tell when someone has just, you know, copy and pasted and probably sent this out to 150 people and hope, you know, would someone would bite. I tend to spend a little bit more time on ones that feel like they’ve done a little bit more understanding about who I am, what my role is. I you know, I get people that reach out for things and I’ll be like, “That doesn’t even align with my role. I don’t even think they understand what I do.” And so sometimes if it’s super generic, I can see in the first few sentences and I kind of assume they’re not as serious and they’re just fishing for something. Those are the ones that I probably don’t spend a lotta time on. But people usually catch my attention when they seem to have done a little bit of work and research and understand what my needs may be

Vincent:
Yeah. Does anyone ever hit you with the, “Hey, go Li- go Nittany Lions,”

Alicia:
Oh, all the time. We are Penn State. We say that all the time. I’m like, “Yeah, we are Penn State, but I don’t, I don’t need that service.”

Vincent:
Yeah. Yeah. But, but if someone, but if someone hits you up with like, “Hey, mentorship,” someone hits you up with like, “Hey you know, this is how I could help you,” right to the point, you don’t feel like it’s generic, gonna get your attention, right? It’s

Alicia:
Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I have some people reach out sometimes about mentorship, and sometimes I’m able to support, sometimes I’m not. But I will encourage people, do that. You never know when it hits. I have great mentors in my life and if I can help someone, I always try to

Vincent:
Yeah. I got a doozy of a message today. It’s, it’s a funny one. So someone had reached out, not like a navigator message. They reached out as like a request, and they said “Do you have a way of tracking your visitors to who come to your website?” And I said, “Yes, I do. We actually have a product called Visitor Identity Graph. Are you interested?” But I haven’t heard back from him. I was like I flipped it. I flipped it. I was like, “Yeah, we…” I was like, “Of course we do. We have a product called VIG.”

Alicia:
I did a lot of research, man. I did a lot of research

Vincent:
that’s, that’s why I said it. You said your research there, it’s, … Oh, funny. So Alicia, talk to us about, you know, you’re, you’re a Northeasterner now, right? You said you well, you were, you went to school at Penn State, but you grew up in Alabama. You know, what do you like doing on the weekend? Your hobbies, what are you interested in?

Alicia:
My son is getting older. He will be 15 next month, so my world is opening up, and I’m really trying to get in my travel bag and, like, do stuff. Don’t laugh at me. I was at a taco festival last weekend, and I’m going to a margarita festival

Vincent:
that sounds delightful. Yeah, I was about to ask you what, for the, for the information about it.

Alicia:
Yeah, I, I am, I am a big proponent of I love what I do. I really do. But I don’t live to work, I work to live. And so I’m about getting out of the house at this point, traveling, enjoying friends, and making the most out of the life that we have been given. So if we can get out of the house, we can go do something, then I’m, I’m all about it. So I’m really just kinda like, “Give me the keys,” or, “Give me the, give me the ticket and I’m outta here.”

Vincent:
Yeah. No, I love that mentality. I was just talking to someone about that the other day, ’cause you’re, you’re not so far from New York City and I live right in New York City, and I was talking to these people and they’re like oh, you went to a Broadway show the other day?” I’m like, “Yeah.” He’s like, “Oh, we haven’t done that.” I’m like, “What do you mean you haven’t done that? You live here, you live here for four years?” I was like, “What do you do? Get out of New York City if you can’t find anything to do.” It’s yeah, I’m like, it’s… I’m, I’m the same way. But, Alicia, a parting thought, a closing thought, anything you want to talk about you, your work at Progressive, anything you’ve learned over the years, just the floor is yours, then we’ll wrap it up

Alicia:
I, what I will say, I don’t know if anyone wants to take advice from me, but what I will say and what I’ve learned in my career is to really trust your gut in making the moves that you, that you make. It sounds a bit cliché, but when you find the thing that you really enjoy doing, you excel. If you find yourself in a position and in a place where you feel like you’re not, you’re not making moves, you’re not making the movement that you want, you’re probably doing the wrong thing. And I try to navigate my career and my job without fear. Just do what you know how to do. Do it right. Don’t be worried about what could happen, what should happen. Follow your gut, and if you… You’d be surprised when you take off the handcuffs how far you will soar in terms of really fulfilling your purpose and getting it right in life

Vincent:
That’s awesome. That’s great advice, great wisdom. Alicia, thank you so much for spending some time with The Marketing Stir today and myself. This has been amazing. We’ll check in with Alicia. Let’s see, A, if we become LinkedIn friends, B, if we meet each other in person, C, if she goes to Ohio for one of those shoots. But I’m joking. Alicia, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for joining us on The Marketing Stir. That, of course, is Alicia Holt, the director of marketing strategy at Progressive Insurance. Check out Progressive Insurance. Come on, you already know it. Now you know more

Alicia:
If you don’t have Progressive, you’re missing out. What are you doing?

Vincent:
What are you doing? Yeah. Yeah. Living under a rock. You need insurance. What if something happens to you? What are

Alicia:
Actually, no, you need Progressive Insurance

Vincent:
need Progressive insurance. Exactly. Exactly. This has been amazing, Alicia. That’s Alicia. I’m Vincent. AJ’s somewhere. We’ll hear from him soon. But this has been another episode of the Marketing Stir. Thank you so much for listening, and we’ll talk soon