NEW YORK , June 28, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Large health insurance companies have a reputation for being inattentive to their customers’ needs and more concerned about money than the well-being of the insured. But new analysis by Landor, a global leader in brand consulting and design, shows that in actuality this is not what consumers think. According to the latest Landor Pulse, consumers do in fact believe that the biggest insurance companies care for them, ranking them high in the “Cares for Customers” category.
Anthem, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Humana, Kaiser Permanente, and United HealthCare all had strong perceptions of “Cares for Customers,” ranking in the top 70th percentile of the 3,000+ brands across all categories, according to the 2017 United States BrandAsset Valuator, the database Landor used in its analysis.
Consumer satisfaction with these insurers goes beyond just customer care, with strong scores for other high-touch attributes including reliable, kind, and trustworthy.
As digital transformation continues to overtake every industry and consumers require on-demand service, health care insurers will have an opportunity to improve scores on “innovative”; many, including Aetna, Cigna, and United HealthCare, now rank below the 50th percentile. But as insurers innovate with digital, they’ll need to maintain their high-touch scores as well.
“Health insurers are overcoming the stereotype of being seen as cold and unfeeling, but these high-touch customer care scores are at risk of dropping if brands simply replace personal contact with technology,” said Suzanne Beane, client director at Landor. “From digitalization to disruptors entering the industry through a series of mergers, the competition in health care is intensifying. The brands that will emerge victorious will be those that consider the entire customer experience and marry digital with personal, individualized care at every touchpoint.”
Recent partnership announcements, including CVS and Aetna, Rite Aid and Albertson, Cigna and Express Scripts, and Walgreens and Humana are revolutionizing the current health care structure. And, disruptors such as Amazon, Apple, and Alphabet/Oscar Health are looking to reinvent the health care system altogether. Insurance, doctor care, and pharmacy will be housed under one roof providing consumers with one-stop shopping for all their medical needs. These brands will be looking to technology to make this 360-degree health care experience seamless across multiple components.
“Health care companies are pioneering digital innovations to enable better health outcomes and significant cost reductions,” said Maarten Lagae, Landor’s senior manager of insights and analytics. “Precision medicine and remote monitoring are just some examples of a patient-centric and tech-led health care model of the future. Companies will compete to be the first to deliver these new experiences, but the real battle companies face is earning patients’ confidence and creating more intimate relationships with them. All these innovations are powered by vast amounts of data that are increasingly collected and shared in real time. Brands will need to communicate compelling reasons for patients to share that valuable data and trust their health care partners to use it wisely. As such, having a caring and friendly brand will be even more important to unlock the full potential of health care innovation.”
The Landor Pulse on health care is based on results from the United States 2017 BrandAsset Valuator (BAV), the world’s largest database of consumer brand perception. It compares statistics of some of the largest health care insurance carriers in the United States, including Aetna, Anthem, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, EmblemHealth, Humana, Kaiser Permanente, and United HealthCare.
For more information, contact:
Trevor Wade
Global Marketing Director
Trevor.Wade@Landor.com
About the Landor Pulse on health care
Using the BrandAsset Valuator (BAV) data of 17,000 United States consumers from the second half of 2017, Landor Pulse analyzed brand performance and trust perceptions of leading health care brands. With more than 20 years of consumer data, BAV is the world’s largest and most enduring study of brand perceptions and performance. Its brand strength model—based on the four pillars of differentiation, relevance, esteem, and knowledge—provides unparalleled historic and predictive insights into building, managing, and tracking brand performance.
To date, BAV tracks brands in more than 51 countries with data from 1,000,000 consumers. It covers some 55,000 brands globally, across dozens of brand metrics and attitudinal questions. BAV is part of Young & Rubicam Group, a partnership of companies that includes Landor.
About Landor
A global leader in brand consulting and design, Landor helps clients create agile brands that thrive in today’s dynamic, disruptive marketplace. Our work enables top brands—from Barclays to BMW and Tide to Taj—to stand for something while never standing still.
Landor’s branding services include insights and analytics, strategy and positioning, brand architecture, innovation, identity, prototyping, naming and verbal identity, packaging, adaptation and implementation, environments and experiences, and new and interactive media.
Founded by Walter Landor in 1941, Landor pioneered many of the research, design, and consulting methods that are now standard in the branding industry. Today, Landor has 26 offices in 19 countries, working with a broad spectrum of world-famous brands. Clients include Barclays, Bayer, BBC, BMW, BP, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, FedEx, GE, Kraft Heinz, Huawei Technologies, Marriott International, Nike, Pernod Ricard, Procter & Gamble, S&P Global, Samsung, Sony, and Taj Group.
Landor is a member of WPP, the world’s largest marketing and communications firm. For more information, please visit Landor.com and follow Landor on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.