Venture Programs Launches Industry-First E-Marketing Campaign

30-second video spot to broadcast on insurance news web sites is first by a program administrator targeting agent and broker market

West Chester, Pa.- Venture Insurance Programs (www.ventureprograms.com), a national program administrator and leader in the design and underwriting of select industry-focused insurance packages, today launched an online video advertising campaign designed to reach agents and brokers with information about Venture’s all-lines programs.

The e-marketing effort features a 30-second video advertisement, “Errant Ball,” that is the first time a program administrator has used an online video spot to reach agents and brokers, according to Richard Look, director of communications for Venture Insurance Programs.

The ad premieres today on www.insurancejournal.com, an online news source. When viewers click on video news, it will open with the 30-second spot. Venture plans to expand its e-marketing campaign to other online insurance news services.

“The effectiveness of e-marketing has decreased in the last few years due in large part to email-based campaigns being increasingly blocked by spam filters,” said Richard Look, “By positioning our ad within respected and well-read online news sources such as Insurance Journal, we expect more than 150,000 views each month that it runs.”

The launch of “Errant Ball” coincides with Insurance Journal’s expansion of its video news service, featuring a series of interviews with industry leaders.

According to the Insurance Marketing Communications Association (IMCA), an international organization of insurance communications professionals, members have reported a significant decrease in response from third party email blast services versus 2003. A cause for the decrease can be attributed to newer spam filters.

“Commercial television spots are nothing new for large insurance carriers and brokerages trying to reach a mass audience, but we believe this web-based method is a great cost-effective alternative for program administrators, MGAs and carriers seeking to reach the brokerage community,” Look says.

The video spot features the path of a golf ball to highlight the industries underwritten and served by Venture. The errant ball travels over a golf green, across a driveway, into the lobby of a resort, disrupting a bell hop and laptop, and coming to rest in a restaurant, but ultimately ending up in an x-ray lab.

The video spot was created by Zelten LLC (www.zelten.com), a web development and media production firm based in Philadelphia, PA.

About Venture Programs

Venture Insurance Programs (www.ventureprograms.com) is a leading program administrator that designs, underwrites and distributes industry-specific insurance packages. Based in West Chester, Pa., Venture has underwriting alliances with the world’s leading carrier groups, including ACE Group, AmTrust, Chubb Group, Discover Re, GE, The Hanover, The Hartford, Seneca, USLI, Zurich North America and Lloyd’s of London. Founded in 1993, Venture provides specialty insurance packages for select vertical industries—including golf and country clubs, community banks, life science businesses, technology companies and hospitality firms. In 2005, Venture Brokerage (www.venturebrokerage.com) was launched as a wholesale division offering mono-line workers’ compensation coverage for heterogeneous risks outside of Venture’s traditional industry programs.

For more information regarding this news release, please contact:
Gary Kimball
Kimball Communications, LLC
610-559-7585
gkimball@kimballcomm.com