Last week, Insurindex hosted the launch of the 2025 London Market Brand Index at an invite-only event in the City of London. More than 45 marketing professionals attended, in anticipation and excitement to find out this year’s rankings.
The event featured key speakers, including David Melvin, Managing Director of Insurindex; Ben Bolton, Managing Director of Gracechurch; and Julian Steedman, Chairman and Managing Director of Brandex.
The talks touched on several important marketing topics such as: ‘Knowing your personas’, and importance of ‘brand marketing’ versus ‘performance marketing’, prior to the unveiling of the 2025 London Market Brand Index.
The upcoming 2025 Insurindex Marketing Summit was also announced as an exclusive, invite-only event hosted by Insurindex at the Royal Society of Arts, featuring guest speakers such as Les Binet, a leading expert in brand building and marketing effectiveness.
Some key takeaways from the event:
Ben Bolton spoke about the importance of measuring market effectiveness, stating: “Brand building over time is the one thing that increases your profit margins and cash flows.”
He also highlighted the lack of B2B data in insurance, noting that most B2B advertising was wasted in “a sea of sameness.”
Julian Steedman added to the conversation, stating that many B2B insurance businesses were now becoming marketing-led. He also highlighted that B2Bs generally tend to take an over-rational approach to marketing, rather than using the thing that works – emotional appeal
Steedman also presented a slideshow featuring different creative mainly B2C ads that were showing their clear effectiveness in relation to brand, marketing, and emotion.
“I just love clever advertising, especially if you’re trying to sell a proposition, a product, and also sell a brand all in one go.” he said.
Steedman further emphasised this point by presenting data on growth comparisons, illustrating the long-term benefits of brand-building versus sales activation. He continued: “I think as the market continues to soften and more players come in, the market is not going to get any bigger unless you build new products and focus on emerging risks.”
When the Index was finally revealed, Bolton gave a shout out to the insurers just outside the top 20, including Ascot, Sompo, and Travelers, stating: “There is no shortage of players with ambition just below the top 20.”
During the presentation, attendees also heard from Ashley Stockwell, Chief Marketing Officer at Convex, who spoke briefly about Convex’s pop-up pub, ‘The Convex Arms,’ and how the idea came to life, fully supported by the Convex leadership.
“We thought we needed to do something external, and we thought it would be interesting to do something that engages with the London Market. What better place than Leadenhall?”
Stockwell continued: “We thought food and drink would be a good thing, so could we open a pub? And we thought that actually felt like a good idea,” he said.
After the presentation, Paula Wilson, Head of Marketing at Liberty Specialty Markets, said she had found the talks insightful, stating: “I think this really inspires us to do more and better. It’s really exciting when they unveil the results and I always come away thinking, ‘I feel inspired now, let’s do more.’”