Farmers Expands Zynga Partnership

Los Angeles-based P&C carrier Farmers Insurance is relaunching a partnership with Zynga, the San Francisco-based developer behind Facebook games including FarmVille.

In addition to offering a Farmers-branded airship to Farmville users — the presence of the airship protects the player's virtual crops from withering and enters them in a drawing to ride the real thing — the insurer is preparing to roll out tie-ins with CityVille, Mafia Wars and Cafe World. Farmers agents will promote the Facebook campaign on their own pages as well.

"Millions of Farmers Airships were placed on FarmVille farms [in the original promotion]," Marc Zeitlin, VP of e-business for Farmers Insurance, says in a statement. "FarmVille players were exposed to the Farmers brand billions of times, raising our Facebook fan base by more than 100,000 in the first week of the promotion. It was one of the most successful things we've done from a branding perspective."

Nathan Golia is senior editor of Insurance & Technology. He joined the publication in 2010 as associate editor and covers all aspects of the nexus between insurance and information technology, including mobility, distribution, core systems, customer interaction, and risk ... View Full Bio