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Farmers® Sponsors Bassmaster Elite Tournament
Farmers cast its line as the title sponsor of the Bassmaster Elite Series: Empire Chase, held in Buffalo, New York.
The well-known tournament brought close to 100 skilled fishermen and a crowd of over 5,000 people to Lake Erie for the weekend of July 30 – August 3, and gave Farmers a lot of positive exposure in the market. Not only was it an opportunity to increase brand awareness with the public, but it was an ideal venue to attract new customers and cross-sell the various outdoor products we offer.
“This started as an idea to get us into the boat manufacturing market, which is a big market with a lot of competition,” said Andy Thomas, Zone Manager, Independent Agent Operations. “Most of the people there not only own boats, but other things that we insure including travel trailers and four-wheelers, so it seemed like a really good fit for us to target the customer base with an outdoor lifestyle.”
Going with the Go ahead. Get OutdoorsTM theme, we attracted people who love the great outdoors to the Farmers booth, which was set up to look like a camp site, complete with a motor home and a personal watercraft parked nearby. We partnered with a Farmers and Foremost agent, Eric Berger, and had a bass boat by his booth. Visitors received many handouts at both of the booths, including Farmers-branded ponchos, which became very useful when the rain started to come down.
Along with getting 280 leads from raffling off fishing gear and offering quotes at our booth and our agent’s booth, Farmers also bought ad time while the event aired on ESPN2. Over 171,000 households watched the tournament on television.
“It was excellent exposure,” says Thomas. “And being the only insurance company at the site was definitely to our advantage. Some of the fishing pros even asked for a quote, and we were able to do that for them. If you watched the event on television, you know who sponsored it because the Farmers name was visible with each commercial.”
Tune into ESPN2 on Saturday, September 20 for a second chance to watch this Farmers-sponsored fishing tournament for yourself!