SKM Group was asked to help National General Insurance based in St. Louis, MO launch an auto insurance product to compete with companies such as Geico and Progressive.

National General Insurance was unknown to consumers because their business had been built through association marketing channels. This created a significant challenge that SKM Group thought could be resolved by using National General’s parent—GMAC’s name and launching as GMAC Insurance. The president of National General did not feel this was a viable possibility because getting approval to launch as GMAC Insurance would take too long and he had goals to attain that year.

We proceeded with qualitative research including focus groups to form the base of our recommendations. We discovered that consumers had a basic distrust of car insurance companies—suspected of ‘playing games. ‘We asked consumers to rank a list of car insurance companies that they would feel comfortable buying from. On that list, we included all the usual players along with National General and GMAC Insurance (even though it didn’t exist at the time). The number one choice was GMAC Insurance and National General ranked at the bottom of the list.This information got the president quick authorization to launch as GMAC Insurance. We developed a campaign that utilized the GMAC name and tied it to the consumers’ concern about games being played in the industry. And the campaign tagline? “The newest player in the car insurance game is not new and doesn’t play games.”

The launch campaign pulled 30% better than corporate expectations.