{"id":111,"date":"2026-07-15T03:42:39","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T03:42:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativo.studio\/thinking\/?p=111"},"modified":"2026-07-26T00:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T00:57:09","slug":"empathy-in-communication-help-first-sell-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativo.studio\/thinking\/empathy-in-communication-help-first-sell-later\/","title":{"rendered":"Empathy in Communication: Help First. Sell Later."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Supporting people through one of life’s biggest transitions before asking them to become customers.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Challenge<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I was brought onto the Infinity Insurance creative team shortly after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico. The timing was purely coincidental.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the months passed, hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans left the island in search of new opportunities, with many settling in Florida. Infinity had long served Florida’s Hispanic community, making the migration an obvious business opportunity. The communication challenge was less obvious. These weren’t people shopping for better insurance rates. They were families rebuilding their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything they owned was arriving by ship. They were looking for housing, jobs, schools, healthcare, and trying to navigate an unfamiliar system while leaving behind everything they knew. Leading with an insurance quote felt like starting the conversation in the wrong place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Insight<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Insurance wasn’t the first thing people needed. Guidance was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we wanted to earn trust, we had to acknowledge what people were actually experiencing instead of immediately asking them to become customers. The opportunity wasn’t simply to insure vehicles arriving from Puerto Rico. It was to become genuinely useful during a difficult moment in people’s lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Approach<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Instead of creating a traditional acquisition campaign, we created resources. Spanish-language landing pages focused primarily on helping Puerto Rican families establish themselves in Florida. The majority of the content consisted of practical information, local resources, and guidance for navigating the transition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Insurance appeared only after we had provided something of value. A simple invitation at the bottom explained how families could insure their vehicle before it arrived in Florida, even while it still carried Puerto Rico license plates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same philosophy extended throughout the campaign. Targeted advertising in Puerto Rico reached families considering relocation with messages centered on support rather than sales. Once in Florida, television and digital advertising featured Puerto Rican accented voice talent so the communication sounded familiar, authentic, and representative of the community we hoped to serve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The work also expanded into Infinity’s Read Conmigo literacy initiative. Partnering with a Puerto Rican author, we created Luisito’s Island, a children’s book exploring themes of home, identity, and belonging through the eyes of a young boy adjusting to life after leaving Puerto Rico. The book would later receive industry recognition for its contribution to children’s literature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every touchpoint was guided by the same question: how can we help before we ask for anything?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Outcome<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The campaign demonstrated that empathy and business objectives don’t compete with one another. They reinforce one another. By leading with helpful resources instead of products, the campaign generated a significant increase in qualified leads throughout Florida and a meaningful increase in new business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luisito’s Island also received industry recognition, extending the campaign’s impact beyond marketing and reinforcing the importance of creating communication that genuinely reflected the experiences of the community it served.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking back, the business results matter. But they aren’t what I remember most. What stayed with me was a simple realization: when people are navigating one of the biggest transitions of their lives, the most powerful thing a brand can say isn’t “Buy from us.” It’s “We’re here to help.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What changed<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The campaign led to a real increase in qualified leads and new business, and the children’s book earned industry recognition of its own.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Let’s Talk<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Empathy isn’t the opposite of business. It’s often the beginning of it. The strongest communication doesn’t start with what you want to say. It starts with what people need to hear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If that’s the kind of communication you’re trying to build, we should talk.<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Supporting people through one of life’s biggest transitions before asking them to become customers. The Challenge I was brought onto the Infinity Insurance creative team shortly after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico. The timing was purely coincidental. As the months passed, hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans left the island in search of new opportunities, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_narrativo_title_es":"Empat\u00eda en la comunicaci\u00f3n: primero ayudas, vendes despu\u00e9s","_narrativo_excerpt_es":"Tras el hurac\u00e1n Mar\u00eda, cientos de miles de puertorrique\u00f1os llegaron a Florida buscando reconstruir sus vidas. El reto no era vender un seguro. Era entender el momento que estaban viviendo y comunicar desde esa realidad\u2026","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativo.studio\/thinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativo.studio\/thinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativo.studio\/thinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativo.studio\/thinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativo.studio\/thinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/narrativo.studio\/thinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128,"href":"https:\/\/narrativo.studio\/thinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions\/128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativo.studio\/thinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativo.studio\/thinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativo.studio\/thinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativo.studio\/thinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}