Amica Insurance and Dentsu’s Merkle have inked a multi-year partnership to bolster the brand’s performance marketing and customer development efforts, Merkle shared exclusively with Campaign US.
Tory Pachis, Amica Insurance SVP of marketing, said the company chose to partner with Merkle due to the agency’s “investment in technology and data to be able to define that addressable market,” which will help the insurer “become more efficient with our marketing investments.” Merkle will be combining Amica’s first-party data with its proprietary insights through its Merkury suite of tools, including its data, identity and insights platform, to create a bespoke “always-on marketing ecosystem” for the insurer.
According to Merkle, the data on its platform is collected ethically through partners and with direct permissions from the individual, and is constantly refreshed, with information ranging from demographics to digital behaviors to automotive preferences.
“The expectations for financial services are rising at an unprecedented rate, so every touchpoint with consumers matters more than ever,” said Jonathan Gagliano, EVP of financial services at Merkle. “As Amica’s marketing technology partner, we look forward to unlocking new paths to growth by combining our deep expertise in financial services with our market-leading Merkury identity platform, to drive new experiences for their customers and prospects.”
Amica senior assistant VP of marketing and communications Anusheel Choudhary said the choice to select Merkle above two other main candidates, which he did not name, boiled down to a connection with Merkle’s staff and its widespread third-party consumer data.
“As we continue our marketing investments to fuel future growth, we knew it was time to double
down on our use of data for audience development,” he said.
Choudhary added Merkle’s data offering will help streamline campaign development, underlining the “efficiency gains that we’ll be able to achieve in the future.”Amica has led a brand marketing overhaul over the last few years; it launched a rebrand in 2023 created with Mother Design. Pachis added Merkle’s input can help it continue to balance its media mix.
“This will allow us to, over time, explore bringing more media in-house, find ways to lower our acquisition costs and be more efficient with our marketing spend,” Pachis said.