ADAMS, Mass.—Second-grade students at Hoosac Valley Elementary School participated in our Junior Marketers Create an Ad series.

With pens and crayons in hand, the students let their creativity run rampant as they created advertisements for Smith Brothers-McAndrews Insurance, showcasing its community-focused approach to providing insurance for families, businesses, and individuals. 

For over 125 years, Smith Brothers-McAndrews Insurance, also known as SBM, has provided more than just home, auto, life, and business insurance; it has also aimed to give back to the community and build strong relationships with its customers, offering consistent and fair-priced services. 

The students had a challenging assignment – to create an advertisement for an insurance company. However, insurance is not yet part of their world, SBM President and Owner David Bissaillon said. 

Despite this, the students did an amazing job, and it was tough to select the three winners, said David and Tyler Bissaillon, sales account executives.  

“They learned a lot about protecting and how insurance can compensate for losses and cover your damages. So, they learned a lot about the insurance and about it being right here in Adams,” Second-grade teacher Lorry Delmolino said. 

David and Tyler encouraged the students to look out the car window the next time they drive down Park Street to see the offices.

In their ads, students incorporated several elements to bring to life the mission of SMB, including the company’s colors and logo, language, including words like “trust,” and visual metaphors, such as hands or umbrellas, to demonstrate the company’s protective insurance services. 

The students were very invested in this experience. It gave them a sense of belonging, and David and Tyler definitely made them feel special for doing it and appreciated them, Delmolino said. 

“They made them feel like they’re part of the community, and had a chance to get to know them too,” she said. 

The winners were chosen using a fair and impartial voting process that included all six SBM staff members. Each team member independently reviewed the student drawings and ranked their top three choices. The votes were then tallied to identify the top three drawings, Tyler Bissaillon said. 

Although only three winners were selected, the Bissaillons were compelled to bring Dunkin Donuts to thank the students for their hard work. 

During the school visit, the students learned about the history of SBM and the concept of insurance. The Bissaillons explained how insurance protects people’s property, compensates for losses, and covers damage to valuable items.

Community, connection, and giving back are the foundation of SBM, David said. 

Insurance gives people the peace of mind of knowing that if something happens, they are protected, David and Tyler said. 

The students highlighted that perfectly with the imagery they used, such as illustrating guard dogs, umbrellas, hearts, and helping hands, they said. 

Having trust with their customers is essential to this type of work and the students included that in their ads language by incorporating words such as trust, protection, honesty, and service, David said. 

“At the end of the day, that’s what insurance is. It’s a promise to pay. It’s a promise to make people whole again,” David said. 

David demonstrated how SBM is committed to giving back to the community through various financial supports, promotions, and sponsorships for local organizations. 

“We just think it shows that we are really we don’t just say we’re committed to the community. We actually act on it,” David said. 

It’s “awesome” to introduce insurance to people at such a young age because it is something they are going to need when they get older. When they grow up, they will likely own a car, home, business, or rent an apartment, and insurance is a big part of that, Tyler said. 

“Half kiddingly, I say, these are our future customers, so we have to kind of work with them,” David said. 

Tyler explained that at SBM, they do not view its relationships with its customers as transactional.

“We look at it really as a relationship…We actually really care about what’s happening,” he said. 

If prices go up, “we want to shop it for you. If there’s an issue, you have my cell phone number, you can call us, and we’ll take care of it,” Tyler said. 

“So, we really look about the relationship, because you can get insurance from anywhere. But I think that relationship portion really matters on where people spend their money and do their business with.” 

Everyone sees what insurance is from a different perspective depending on their life stage or the type of insurance they need, David said. 

“So for us, [the Create an Ad project was] a nice eye opener that sometimes you need to simplify things,” he said. 

“We get this world gets so complicated at times, even insurance needs to be simplified so that an eight-year-old can understand it. So they taught us that.” 

Maxine Wendell, the first-place winner, created a drawing that depicts hands holding a heart above a house and a car with an umbrella over it. 

Umbrellas protect people from the rain, just as insurance protects a lot of different things, from homes, cars, and businesses, David said. 

Wendell explained that the hands symbolize SBM’s protection of the home, represented by the heart, while the umbrella represents protection over the car.

The incorporation of these elements effectively demonstrated SBM’s brand and goals, emphasizing its commitment to protecting the things its customers care about. 

Second-place winner, Jack Walden, also demonstrated this through the incorporation of the umbrella imagery. 

Walden drew a big mansion with two big hands coming out to block rain from hitting the house. Within the clouds are the words SBM and the phrase “insurance is like protecting.” 

Aria Byros drew a guard dog protecting a house and explained that the guard dog is protecting the house from people, similar to how insurance protects homes. 

Insurance protects people by paying for items that may get stolen, damaged, or broken, she said.