State Farm marries mobile video, location to spark leads

By Lauren Johnson

October 21, 2013

State Farm's mobile site

State Farm has launched a new interactive iAd campaign that puts consumers in control of their experience to ultimately generate a sales lead.

The insurance company?s new ?Chaos in Your Town? iAd campaign leverages GPS to pull in a video scene of chaos happening around a consumer?s location. State Farm worked with DDB on the ad.

?The heft of our efforts in mobile has been dedicated to standard acquisition ad units driving users to get a quote and to a lesser extent pre-roll video,? said Joseph Cianciotto, executive creative director at DDB, New York.

?This campaign represents a hybrid approach that both leverages the awareness capabilities of an experiential vehicle with the ability to drive both engagement and acquisition in a way that can be tracked and optimized in real-time,? he said.

Mobile chaos?
When users click on an ad, a video begins that pulls in Google Maps to make the ad more contextual.

Consumers then hold up their mobile devices in place while a scene of robots move across the screen.

As the robots move in closer, the ad?s creative prompts users to either use a force field to fight off the robots or find a State Farm agent.

If a consumer picks the force field option, the robots are automatically zapped.

On the other hand, the agent button triggers a scene where the robots are pulled off of the street with a giant branded magnet.

The mobile video ad in action

At the end of the video, a call-to-action prompts users to click through to get a quote from State Farm. There are also options to share or replay the video.

The ?Get a Quote? button brings up State Farm?s mobile site, which includes a click-to-call action that connects consumers with an insurer.

Similar to other insurance companies, the goal is to drive sales leads, and the ad is aimed at giving consumers a few different options to engage with leading up to the ultimate call-to-action prompting a call.

Incorporating both GPS and HTML5 highlights the opportunities that marketers have to create interactive mobile campaigns within Apple?s iAds.

State Farm?s ?Chaos in your town? ad builds on a similar campaign in 2011. A Web microsite asked consumers to type in their address that pulled up a Google Street View scene of the robots on a consumer?s block.

Past efforts?
State Farm was one of the first advertisers to get on board with Apple?s iAd in 2010 (see story).

State Farm has also used other forms of mobile advertising, including Pandora, in the past to promote different campaigns (see story).

In this case, State Farm and DDB chose to use HTML5 to create a rich experience that is geo-targeted versus the typical app experience of iAds.

Additionally, HTML5 enabled the brand to include a sharing option so that consumers can revisit the ad via a browser after closing the ad.

?Previously State Farm has utilized the iAd platform to serve up video,? Mr. Cianciotto said.

?And while these units have performed very well for us in both tracking and clicks, we had a stronger desire to create a vehicle that specifically spoke to the mobile platform and afforded us the opportunity to optimize more efficiently based upon post engagement behavior,? he said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York

Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Marketer. Reach her at lauren@mobilemarketer.com.

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NORFACE Welfare State Futures

The New Opportunities for Research Funding Agency Cooperation in Europe (NORFACE) Network is pleased to announce its new research programme Welfare State Futures, a programme of innovative research designed to ask, and answer, fundamental questions about the design, delivery and experience of welfare in the 21st Century. 

NORFACE - is a partnership between 15 research councils to increase cooperation in research and research policy in Europe and beyond. It extends and formalises existing working relationships between countries and provides a framework and vision for a durable multi-national strategic partnership in research funding and practice, especially within the social sciences. Since 2004, NORFACE has received core funding through the European Commission’s ERA-NET scheme. This highly topical and policy-relevant theme offers an approach from a variety of perspectives and disciplines, enables and encourages multi-disciplinarity and offers a fruitful area for a pan-European approach with opportunities for comparison. A two-stage submission process will be implemented Candidates whose proposal has been shortlisted are now invited to submit a full proposal by 16 January 2014. All Full Proposals must be completed in English and follow the proposal structure as indicated in the application template available on the NORFACE website

The Full Proposals should be in PDF format and must be submitted via the electronic application system ISAAC. Guidance on how to submit the proposal is available on the NORFACE website. Proposals received after the deadline, or failing to comply with the published requirements, will be rejected. Only the candidates who are invited by the Network Board to do so are eligible to submit a Full Proposal. If the stated maximum number of words and/or pages is exceeded, or if the necessary documents are not included, the application may be automatically disqualified. Only one application template per Full Proposal may be submitted

To find out more about the programme please email: esrcnorfacewelfarestatefutures@esrc.ac.uk

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The Impact of Repealing State and Local Tax Deductibility

The Impact of Repealing State and Local Tax DeductibilityKim Rueben

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

© TAX ANALYSTS. Reprinted with permission.

Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

When President Bush convened a panel in 2005 to consider options for federal tax reform, he listed several goals, including tax simplification in a revenue-neutral way to promote long-term growth. He wanted the reform to maintain the progressivity of the income tax and incentives for homeownership and charity.

An important key provision not explicitly protected is the federal deductibility of state and local (income, general sales, and property) taxes, which is expected to have a tax expenditure cost of $65.8 billion in fiscal 2005 (as compared with $72.6 billion for home mortgage interest and $34.2 billion for individual charitable contributions).1

An additional impetus for tax reform is the individual alternative minimum tax. Although only 4 percent of taxpayers will owe AMT in 2005 because of a temporary provision that protects most middle-ncome taxpayers, 20 percent will become AMT taxpayers in 2006 after that provision expires. By 2010, almost one-third of taxpayers will owe AMT. The largest AMT preference item — that is, a deduction allowed under the regular income tax but not the AMT — is the deduction for state and local taxes. Therefore, as the AMT net widens, more households will get little or no benefit from the state and local tax deduction. In light of that, one possible reform could be the repeal of state and local tax deductibility from federal income taxes in conjunction with the repeal or reform of the AMT.2

Before reforms to federal policy are undertaken, it is important to understand the possible ramifications to subnational governments and to understand the theoretical justification for tax deductibility. There are concerns that the removal of state and local tax deductibility will lower support for public services and lead to a "race to the bottom" in terms of state and local expenditures as states compete to have the lowest taxes in order to attract higher-income households. The likelihood of that scenario depends on what factors affect the location decisions of households and how large the expected increase in tax liability is expected to be for households with different income levels.

This report will briefly discuss the history and arguments for and against the deductibility of state and local taxes. It presents some summary information on the distribution of state and local tax deductions and explores what factors will affect the future costs of repeal, focusing on who currently benefits most from those deductions across different states and income levels. The report presents projections of the cost savings to the federal government if the state and local deductions were eliminated under scenarios both with and without the AMT being repealed, and explores which groups of taxpayers are expected to see changes in their tax bills over time. The report returns to the question of how that is expected to affect state and local governments, examining current estimates of the subsidy rate that tax deductibility gives to state and local governments and drawing lessons from the aftermath of the Tax Reform Act of 1986. The interaction with the AMT lessens the impact of repeal for many households, thus the effect on states and the question of whether the elimination of state and local tax deductibility will lead to a race to the bottom rests on the influence and mobility of the wealthiest taxpayers.

Notes from this section

1 Tax expenditures are taken from the Congressional Research Service (2004).

2 Because the level of property taxes is directly related to the cost of owning a home, an argument could be made that the president's mandate to maintain incentives for home ownership would protect the deductibility of property taxes.

Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

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AMT Coverage by State, 2007

AMT Coverage by State, 2007Carol Rosenberg

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

Reprinted with permission of Tax Analysts.

The complete article with the table is available in PDF format.

Many taxpayers must calculate their federal income tax liability under two sets of rules: those applying to the regular income tax and those of the alternative minimum tax. If a taxpayer owes more tax under the alternative rules, then the difference is paid as AMT. The AMT hits people in some states harder than it does in others because state and local income and property taxes are not allowed as itemized deductions against the AMT and because income varies across states. This column discusses AMT participation rates by state.

Many taxpayers must calculate their tax liability under two sets of rules: those applying to the regular income tax and those under the alternative minimum tax. If they owe more tax under the alternative rules, then the difference is paid as AMT. The AMT hits people in some states harder than others. State and local income and property taxes are allowed as itemized deductions against the regular income tax, but not against the AMT. As a result, taxpayers in states that rely more heavily on income taxes are more likely to be on the AMT than taxpayers in other states. A temporary provision (expiring at the end of 2009) also allowed taxpayers to elect to deduct sales taxes, rather than income taxes, in 2007. States also vary based on the income of their residents. Higher-income people are more likely to be on the AMT because households with incomes below the AMT exemption ($66,250 for couples and $44,350 for singles in 2007) are not subject to the tax, and the AMT exemption phases out at incomes exceeding $150,000 ($112,500 for single filers).

(End of text. The complete article with the table is available in PDF format.

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AMT Coverage by State, 2004

AMT Coverage by State, 2004Leonard E. Burman, Carol Rosenberg

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

Note: This report is available in its entirety in PDF Format.

Many taxpayers must calculate their federal income tax liability under two sets of rules: those applying to the regular income tax and those of the alternative minimum tax. If a taxpayer owes more tax under the alternative rules, then the difference is paid as AMT. The AMT hits people in some states harder than it does in others. State and local income and property taxes are allowed as itemized deductions against the regular income tax, but not against the AMT. As a result, taxpayers in states that rely more heavily on income taxes are more likely to be on the AMT than taxpayers in other states. A temporary provision (up for renewal) also allowed taxpayers to elect to deduct sales taxes, rather than income taxes, in 2004. States also vary based on the income of their residents. Higher-income people are more likely to be on the AMT, because households with incomes below the AMT exemption ($58,000 for couples and $40,250 for singles in 2004) are not subject to the tax and the AMT exemption phases out at incomes exceeding $150,000.

The map below shows the proportion of taxpayers on the AMT in each state in 2004. In two-thirds of the states, less than 2.5 percent of taxpayers were subject to the AMT, but in New Jersey, 7.6 percent of taxpayers paid AMT, and almost the same percentage (7.4 percent) owed AMT in New York. More than 5.5 percent of taxpayers in Connecticut, California, and the District of Columbia were subject to the AMT. In all states, the percentage of taxpayers subject to the AMT increased since 2003 because AMT parameters, unlike those of the regular income tax, are not adjusted for inflation.

Overall, 3.1 million taxpayers (3.5 percent) were subject to the AMT in 2004. However, the current elevated AMT exemption and is a temporary provision is scheduled to decline sharply in 2007. Without a change in the law, more than 23 million taxpayers will be affected by the tax in 2007. Even taxpayers in low-tax states will feel the pinch.

For more on the AMT, see Leiserson and Rohaly, 2006, "The Individual Alternative Minimum Tax: HistoricalData and Projections."

Note: This report is available in its entirety in PDF format.

The Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, provides independent, timely, and accessible analysis of current and emerging tax policy issues for the public, journalists, policymakers, and academic researchers. For more tax facts, see http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts.

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