ahm: Simplicity is the core of our brand

ahm has launched a new brand platform anchored in simplicity that it says is more just a marketing campaign, it's an entire brand permeation.

The new strategic platform called ‘The Simple Bit’ focuses on how ahm can play a role in reducing the complexity in health insurance and beyond.

Since its relaunch in 2014, ahm has grown rapidly, pushing the message of affordability to its younger customers. ahm director brand and digital, Peita Golden, said while affordability is still crucial, it was not enough of a brand differentiator to take the group into the future. In addition, ahm’s target millennials customers are wanting more of a reason to take up health insurance.

“Since we were acquired and rebranded in 2014, we’ve had really rapid growth as a health insurer, to become the fastest growing insurer in the category, which is largely attributed to a focused target audience and affordability,” Golden said.

“But this is not really a sustainable competitive advantage into the future, particularly in light of the private health insurance reforms coming soon. Of course price is a category driver, but why else would consumers choose ahm? Simple has always been a part of our brand promise and is highly relevant to the category and consumers at the moment.”

ahm leaned heavily on insights from agency and research partners before the brand platform launch. The group also conducted semiotic research in market on what simple looks like in market, specifically talking to its millennial target audience. On top of this, the health insurer internal research it’s been compiling for years.

With brand awareness is the key metric of success, ahm now hopes to improve unprompted brand awareness moving forward.

“Specifically for our brand and the life stage we’re at, our metric is largely unprompted awareness. And a way to move the needle on unprompted brand awareness is creating that fluency in market. We’ve got a clear path forward on being consistent on our assets to cement the fluidity,” Golden told CMO.

“This is more than a campaign, we’ve been working on it for a considerable amount of time. It is a strategic framework that defines how we do things. It is a commitment to simplicity throughout the entire business.”

In the future, and to ensure simplicity, future growth and agility, ahm will be looking at enhancing its martech stack.

“We’ve got aspirations to be more than just health insurance in the long-term. We‘re diversifying products and offerings, and now have travel and life insurance products. We are making sure that products are relevant to our audience, because we can’t be all things to all people.”

The Simple Bit is launching with a television, print and online campaign.

ahm is part of the Medibank Group and has had more than 700,000 health insurance customers over the past 40 years.

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