Going for Broker in Video Game

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Farmers Insurance Group’s decision to put its products in Facebook’s most popular game earned the company a lot of fans, but not sales leads for its agents.

The L.A.-based insurer on Oct. 27 entered Cityville, a multiplayer game that simulates city planning and development. In the game, each player decides what buildings to put in their ideal city.

Farmers arranged a product placement – called an “activation” – so that players may choose to build a University of Farmers, a fictional school shown in TV commercials. Players earn extra game points for hosting the school in their city.

Farmers previously had a presence in other Facebook games, including Farmville, Café World and Mafia Wars. All the games are owned by Zynga of San Francisco. But Cityville has surpassed them all in terms of number of players.

Marc Zeitlin, vice president of e-business at Farmers, headquartered in the Mid-Wilshire area, declined to state how many people had downloaded the University of Farmers building because the game is still going, but it numbers in the multiple millions.

“It is the most successful activation in social games ever,” Zeitlin said of the University of Farmers offering.

But how does getting millions of people to download an image, and tens of millions to see it, sell insurance?

Michael Glazer, chief executive of social media ad agency Back at You in Encino, said the Cityville promotion gives Farmers brand awareness. But the game doesn’t provide a concrete action for participants to buy insurance or even contact an agent for a quote.

“It’s a great idea to get people to interact with the brand and the building, but the real next step is to close the loop,” Glazer said. “If players could earn extra credit points for contacting an agent, that would make it more tangible.”

But Facebook game rules don’t allow such a connection, Zeitlin said.

Instead, Zeitlin said he measures the success in terms of impressions. Online surveys show that the games have changed the image of Farmers in consumers’ minds.

“Is Farmers seen as a more cool brand?” he said. “The answer is yes.”

Data also show that most of the players for Cityville are stay-at-home moms, a perfect target audience for an insurance company, Zeitlin said.

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