Rod Brooks of PEMCO Mutual Insurance Company

Rod Brooks Rod W. Brooks is the Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer for PEMCO Mutual Insurance Company based in Seattle, Washington. As such, Rod is a member of the PEMCO executive committee and has oversight responsibility for product development, underwriting, brand management, marketing and sales. In addition, PEMCO has two wholly owned subsidiaries, PEMCO Life Insurance Company and PEMCO Insurance Agency, for which Brooks is the responsible executive and member of the board of directors. Brooks joined PEMCO in 1999 after nearly 25 years in retail sales, marketing and business development roles. He was a newcomer to the insurance industry when he joined PEMCO and cites his retail and media experience as a major benefit to him as he has helped to guide PEMCO to a customer-centric, market-driven approach. Rod holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Murrow School of Communications at Washington State University. He has held executive roles with Northwest-based companies including Coinstar, Egghead Software, Quality Food Centers (a division of Kroger), and Northern Automotive.

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WOMM-U: Day Two Case Study: Houlihan’s Restaurant

The final session of the conference featured a case study on Houlihan’s Restaurants, presented by Jen Gulvik, VP Marketing, Houlihan’s Restaurants, Inc.

In the past few years Houlihan’s has undergone a tremendous transformation. Spreading the word about this has been an interesting challenge. They’re not a national advertiser. While they are in some major markets, they don’t have the budget that many of their competitors do.

The task was to see if they could turn their customers into a marketing force. In the past many of their restaurants had established e-mail lists, it was one-way only. However they do receive a large amount of customer feedback, and this is increasing. She thinks this matches the trend of customers taking control of their brand experiences.

At a WOMMA event a year ago, Jen realized that they’re in an industry (food & beverage) that is heavily talked about. Why not take advantage of that?

First step was to determine who their brand lovers were. They created and sent out a survey. Some quick metrics: 114,949 sent, 18,695 received. From there they began to build out a program, an advisory group. This group would advise them on menu choices and other brand assets. They also developed a program for the HouliFAN’s.

The primary communication channel with the advisory group is the HQ, a password protected site that allows Houlihan’s to provide information to the fans. It also allows them to participate in coversations and get feedback.

One of the first things they did was ask the advisory group, what would you do? Early on they saw an issue related to the removal of fajitas from the menu, or as Jen said, a fajita-freakout.

Once the site was established with the advisory group, it expanded to the entire fan-base, the HouliFANs.

Soon afterwards they rolled out a new menu and used their fans and the site to spread the word. They found that 35% of the fans had spread WOM about the menu.

The program is still new and growing but they’ve been thrilled with the response and feedback they’ve received.

Rod Brooks of PEMCO Mutual Insurance Company

On the agenda

WOMM-U: Day Two Case Study: Houlihan’s Restaurant

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