Farmers Insurance Wedding At Pasadena Roses Parade

Nothing says New Year quite like a sponsored wedding.

On 1 January 2013, Farmers Insurance leveraged the annual Tournament Of Roses Parade’s 54 million strong TV audience to host Nicole and Gerald’s dream wedding.

The couple shared their vows atop the insurer’s ‘Love Float’ during the traditional Pasadena (California) event as the culmination of the brand’s ‘Dream Wedding’ campaign (this year’s parade theme was ‘Follow Your Dreams’).

Initially the campaign kicked off with an online search for the ‘perfect couple’ to marry live on TV. The initiative launched on social media channels back in September 2012 and it was supported by both local agents and other digital assets such as the brand website and Twitter feed. This generated thousands of submissions, which the brand sifted through to find the entrant which best reflected its brand values.

The selection process settled upon Nicole and Gerald of Chesapeake (Virginia) and Farmers helped them celebrate their big day in style with a huge America audience watching.

The Tournament of Roses Parade, is self-titled ‘America’s New Year Celebration’ organised by the non-profit Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association and held in Pasadena, California. It is essentially a flower-strewn float festival that features assorted marching bands, horses and culminates in the high profile college football Rose Bowl game on New Year’s Day.

Interestingly, the iconic Rose Bowl game was added in 1902 to help fund the cost of staging the parade.

The tradition dates back to 1890 and is watched by hundreds of thousands of spectators on the route and broadcast by several US networks (including ABC) and shown in worldwide in 200-odd international territories and countries.

Comment:

One of our favourite 2013 New Year’s sponsorships.

Traditionally most brands have settled for a float to project standard impact, visibility and logo coverage during the nationwide live TV event, but Farmers Insurance took a more innovative approach to making the most of the parade opportunity.

It certainly paid off if the top line statistics are any indications. The initiative resulted in 516 million impressions, 586 media placements, 113,000 page views, 82,000 Facebook likes, and 100,000 YouTube views.

Farmers must feel an extra sense of satisfaction as Honda is actually the parade’s lead sponsor (it’s rights include having the first float

Particularly considering that since the 2011 parade, Honda has been the lead sponsor of the “Rose Parade presented by Honda”. Accordingly, Honda has the parade’s first float, which this year revolved around the ‘Oh The Places You’ll Go’ idea and featured an imaginative depiction of innovative Honda technologies and Dr. Seuss-inspired features.

Honda’s lead sponsor activation also featured three world champion athletes, 5,000 roses, 11,000 carnations and 2,500 gerberas and the float was powered by a Honda hybrid, low-emission engine.