Launching a Tool the Agent Community Actually Wanted to Use
The Situation
The Hartford was releasing ICON, a new small commercial quoting tool designed to make it faster and easier to quote small business insurance. The tool was a significant product investment. The launch needed to match that ambition, building awareness, generating excitement, and driving adoption once the tool went live.
The audience was independent insurance agents and their staff, the people who would actually be sitting down to quote policies for small business customers day to day. These aren't Hartford employees — they're independent distributors with no obligation to use any particular tool. Getting them to adopt ICON meant making them want to, not just telling them it existed.
The Work
I managed all project execution for the ICON launch campaign, including planning, production, vendor sourcing, and coordination across channels.
The campaign rolled out in two phases. Before launch, a three-panel mailer went out to independent agents and their staff with a USB key driving them to a teaser landing page. The creative leaned into ICON's core promise, Fast, Accurate, Bindable, with playful FAB wordplay that gave an insurance campaign genuine personality. Something tangible and memorable in a category that rarely is.
When the tool launched, the campaign shifted to experiential. Launch parties hosted by Hartford sales representatives brought independent agents and their staff together, supported by posters, swag bags, and branded giveaways including luggage tags, mousepads, and a custom sticky note block. Email blasts to the agent community tied everything together.
I set the guidelines for the launch parties, sourced and managed all giveaway production, and kept every workstream on track through launch.
The Result
The ICON campaign won Best of Show at the IMCA Awards in 2012. The tool it helped launch became a lasting platform for The Hartford's small business strategy. By 2015, New ICON supported 25,000 class codes, 2,800 business rules, and 600 underwriting questions, with 53% of eligible quotes bindable online and an average time-to-quote of 5 minutes. Independent agents rated it the best quoting and submission platform in the industry. The Hartford referenced it in investor documents and the chairman's annual letter as a cornerstone of their small commercial leadership. A campaign helped launch something the business kept building for years.