Yates & Associates Delivers Message and Then Some

Getting your message out successfully to customers can be the difference between being a great business, an average business, or no business at all. California-based Yates & Associates, an excess and surplus lines broker and managing general agency, has taken the advertising message one step further.

Delivering advertisements with a message and some humor, the company has spent a fair amount of money to let the insurance world know just what it offers.

“We feel [advertising] is very important,” CEO Jim Yates remarked. “We also do a fax flier to every agent in the state twice a month. You advertise where you can best put your dollars. Even in a hard market when they’re knocking on our door, it is just as important to have your name out there.”

While many companies advertise, Yates & Associates has taken it a step further with some ads that are quick to poke fun at Yates and president and COO Jim Hippard.

“A week ago, a new agent called one of our underwriters and said he wanted to do business with the guys who are willing to make fun of themselves,” Hippard said.

As Yates pointed out, “We’ve had some ideas that never reached the drawing board. We look at what may be eye catching and put that out for the product. Every year it is always hard to top the one before.” And as Hippard noted, “We want to poke fun at ourselves and get our message across in a light way. Myra Lookabill of Advertising Plus, Jim and myself are primarily responsible for the ads. She [Myra] does about 50 percent of it.”

Yates and Hippard have pretty much run the gamut from being dressed as women, to being tied up in straight suits, to looking the role of sumo wrestlers. Their most popular, however, would wet one’s appetite.

“Of the feedback we get, the one that stands out is when Jim and I were hot dogs,” Yates said. “We hear more about that than any other single ad we’ve done.”

While they like to have fun, both men point out that the industry has a number of serious issues to deal with as it heads into 2003.

“I feel the market will continue being hard in 2003 and probably into half of 2004,” Hippard remarked. “I think we might see more mergers. There might be some more companies who close their doors or change their whole distribution systems. People are very busy and they’re earning what they write.”

While some struggle with today’s conditions, Yates noted that the company continues in the right direction.

“We’re very happy with our growth. This is the first year we’ve reached writing over $50 million. We attribute a lot of it to advertising and the staff here.”