The duck goes b-t-b in sports marketing

Drew Ermenc

May 1, 2008

Through its sponsorships of the Aflac All-American High School Baseball Classic, NASCAR and most recently the Aflac Iron Girl Event Series, Aflac is putting its dollars where it sees the business-to-business (b-t-b) potential. And it's beginning to pay off, according to Al Johnson, Aflac's VP of marketing, who spoke with Senior Writer Drew Ermenc:

BTB: Explain the decision behind implementing this sports marketing strategy that focuses on b-t-b.

Johnson: We've always been focused on b-t-b marketing. We've stepped it up in 2007, getting more involved in some higher profile properties, specifically NASCAR. b-t-b marketing has always been part of our strategy.

When we looked at additional ways to communicate with the business community, we felt like sponsorships are one of the many ways to get out there and get to know people on a one-on-one basis. Not just communicating traditionally, but getting involved and having events in local markets like a NASCAR race or an Aflac Irongirl ... gives us an opportunity to build relationships, a lot further than just knowing us as the insurance company with the duck.

BTB: How do you know if the business owner or decision maker is a fan?

Johnson: Getting to know them, whether it's a MLB game, football game or NASCAR event, it doesn't matter. We invite them to a race and get to know them through the hospitality we put on ... Insurance is purchased on a relationship basis, and this gives us the time to build the relationship. On the Iron Girl, what we see is females, both the consumer and [business] decision-makers, have very important roles in making business and insurance
decisions.

BTB: Where is the value on the difference between the relationship/hospitality aspect of b-t-b marketing versus the Carl Edwards sponsorship, which is consumer marketing?

Johnson: They work off each other. A lot of people know us, and we want to make sure they understand our business and what we can do for them. With regards in the difference in the value that we place on the hospitality ... we measure things like the impressions the car makes with the logo going around the track, and the merchandise sold at the track. And those are consumers.

Talking about b-t-b, being able to bring people to the suite and build those relationships ... that's completely different than someone being a fan of Carl Edwards and who now says "Aflac supports him so now I like Aflac."

And we do things with our show car. Between races, the car comes to various cities and different accounts so their employees can experience something they might not. We've had some positive feedback from the employers who tell us it's nice Aflac is doing something for them rather than selling insurance.

BTB: What is the ROI for the b-t-b sports?

Johnson: We're tracking whether the accounts that come to a race and whether additional business is written. We don't tie it directly to NASCAR. We identify and track every person or business that comes into our hospitality. So we can show some sort of return on how this program is paying off. But we don't get them to [buy] new products once they walk through the door (laughs).