Zurich Named Marketer of the Year by the Direct Marketing Association

ZURICH and SAN DIEGO, Oct. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Zurich Financial Services Group (Zurich), a top five global insurance company, today received the Direct Marketing Association's (DMA) Marketer of the Year Award.

The DMA Marketer of the Year honors an individual or company who has contributed to direct marketing excellence in the last 12 months, and has exhibited corporate and environmental responsibility. Established in 1968, the award recognizes the achievement, innovation, and leadership of a company whose work represents the very best in marketing directly.

"This award is a great honor for Zurich and the entire marketing and communications team globally, all of whom have enacted meaningful change that can be seen and realized," said Zurich's Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Arun Sinha. "What's been most rewarding is to see as a company, Zurich not only experiencing significant growth in brand awareness and consideration of our products and services in markets and segments across the board, but also integrating a cultural shift with employees to become more customer centric that is paving the way for the entire insurance industry."

Marketer of the Year award recipients must have shown a significant impact on the marketing community by demonstrating leadership within the marketing community through the implementation of new products or services, processes, or personal growth.

"Zurich is an innovative organization that has made a significant impact with its marketing focus over the last year," said Barbara Parker, DMA's Director, Award Programs. "The Company's HelpPoint campaign has been transformative to the culture and perception of the business and serves as a benchmark for others trying to strengthen important rapport with their customers. Their efforts exceed our requirements for this distinction."

Launched in September 2008, the Zurich HelpPoint global campaign is one of the largest global marketing initiatives. The campaign has spanned more than 140 countries, over six media channels and hundreds of individual executions.

The Zurich HelpPoint campaign is based upon extensive market research to enable a precise understanding of insurance customers' wants and needs. In total, the research involved more than 39,000 customers in 12 countries. The marketing and communications efforts aim to transform the image, perception and brand of Zurich from simply a traditional insurance provider to a customer-centric enterprise, differentiated from other insurers by placing its customers at the center of everything the organization does, from underwriting to finance to marketing to compliance.

The term 'Zurich HelpPoint' captures the company's commitment of delivering when it matters in an easy-to-understand, highly recognizable approach that would be meaningful to customers across all lines of business and geographies.

A truly 360-degree initiative, Arun Sinha's team is also driving a global internal HelpPoint awareness campaign to enable all employees to understand their individual role in delivering for the customer when it matters. The internal campaign has several initiatives including 'managers toolkits' to provide support and context to help managers to engage teams and drive action and advocacy. Keeping with the technology and innovation aspect of the campaign, an effective HelpPoint e-learning module for employees provided a twenty-minute interactive experience, which was completed by over 30,000 employees. And most recently Zurich held Customer Celebration Month internally as a way for employees to understand and honor customers.

Zurich Financial Services Group (Zurich) is an insurance-based financial services provider with a global network of subsidiaries and offices in North America and Europe as well as in Asia Pacific, Latin America and other markets. Founded in 1872, the Group is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. It employs approximately 60,000 people serving customers in more than 170 countries.

SOURCE Zurich Financial Services Group