Each year, the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) offers its 6,500 administrative, maintenance and supervisory employees several voluntary insurance benefits during an open enrollment process. In November 2008, the decision was made by the SDP Director of Benefits, Stephanie Fedoroff to use the Flimp® web video communications technology for the annual voluntary benefits enrollment and education process. Flimp®, which stand for Flash Interactive Marketing Platform is a patent pending video marketing and analytics technology that enables rapid creation, deployment and tracking of interactive video landing pages, brochures and audiovisual communications without any programming or IT resources.
The SDP open enrollment was conducted from December 1 -9, 2008. Voluntary benefits products offered to SDP employees included a flexible spending plan, term life insurance (Humana Specialty Benefits), disability insurance and whole life insurance (ING). Information about the enrollment process and products was communicated to employees using traditional mail and Flimp web video email. Benefits enrollment was completed via telephone and in person through a third party enrollment center managed by USI Affinity.

Communications Objectives

According to Stephanie Fedoroff, "Our primary objective was to offer employees products they could not obtain through the SDP's primary benefit program, and to get a group rate for them. One of our major challenges was how to educate our employees about the products so they understood what they were buying. In the past, there has been no good way for employees to learn about the benefits products prior to contacting the enrollers. When they contact an enroller, it was to elect coverage. The educational piece just wasn't there."
"Our goal was to increase participation by 10%. Flimp more than doubled that objective by increasing enrollment by 22% for 2009." Grady Ford, SDP Insurance Broker To address the problem of providing employees with good product education, the SDP turned to their broker who recommended that the School District use Flimp. According to Fedoroff, "Our broker, Grady Ford told us about Flimp. He said it would be very useful. I admit that I was skeptical but took a wait and see approach." Flimp was presented as an efficient, low cost way to communicate complex information using audiovisual content directly to employees so they could educate themselves about the various benefits products being offered. The SDP decided to use Flimp video email communications instead of holding regional meetings, which would require significant time and resources to organize. In addition to providing a cost effective way to enable employees to learn about the voluntary benefits products, other objectives included:

• Increase SDP employee awareness of and engagement in the enrollment process.
• Increase SDP employee enrollment levels for voluntary benefits products.
• Reduce the time required to effectively carry out the open enrollment process.
• Enable real time reporting of employee engagement in the enrollment process.

Viewer Data Collected by Flimp

SPD Audience Actions:

SDP Employee Actions	# of Viewers	Viewer Response Rate
Received SDP Flimp video emails	6,500	N/A
SDP Flimp Videosite Views (opened videosite)	2,532	39.0%
Successul Video Plays (video able to play)1	2,353	36.2%
Clicked Response Links (viewer response)	1,645	70.0%s

1 Multiple views by the same person within 5 minutes are counted as one videosite view.

Viewing Minutes:

	SDP Introduction Flimps	Insurance Product Flimps
Video Duration	2 minutes, 42 seconds	3 minutes, 6 seconds
Total Viewing Time	38 hours, 46 minutes, 1 second	13 hours, 43 minutes, 51 seconds
Average Viewing Time	1 minute, 24 seconds	1 minute

How Flimp was Used:

Following the decision in early November to use Flimp, Flimp Media had just one week to develop, deploy, deliver and track a coordinated, compliant audiovisual communications and education program for the SDP enrollment that would meet the needs and compliance requirements of the School District, brokers, insurance carriers, and enrollment administrator. The Flimp technology was used to quickly develop a series of custom branded digital video landing pages brochures with built-in tracking about the enrollment details and products that were delivered to employees by email and embedded into dedicated microsite which can be seen at www.enrollsdp.org.
For content, an introductory video presentation summarizing the enrollment process and available products was created by Flimp Media using approved SDP scripting and branding. Using the Flimp technology, this was quickly turned into an interactive flash landing page and microsite brochure with links to other flimp landing pages brochures featuring the various insurance products and an employee survey. In addition to the introduction, audiovisual brochures were created using Flimp for several of the offered benefits products. All of the communications and landing pages brochures had built-in viewer tracking to measure engagement and response rates. Enrollment center telephone numbers were clearly displayed to drive viewers to enroll after viewing the communications.
"One of the most important points I stressed" according to Stephanie Fedoroff "was that the visual communications needed to reflect our diverse employee population. The staff at Flimp Media understood exactly what we needed and tailored our Flimp communications accordingly."
The School District sent the Flimp videosite communications to the 6,500 eligible employees via email on two separate dates prior to the enrollment period. Employees could open their email, watch a comprehensive 2 minute video message about the enrollment process, and then navigate to educational collateral on the products created using the Flimp application. As viewers engaged with the content, their activities were tracked and reported in the Flimp Viewer Reporting dashboard. "The messages were so clear. I watched it over and over again myself." said Fedoroff. "Education must include repetition in my view. This way employees really had a chance to learn about the product offerings."

SDP Flimp Campaign Results

"Our goal this year was to educate employees on the benefits of Flexible Spending Accounts, and increase participation by 10%" according to Grady Ford, broker for the SDP enrollment process. Viewer Data Collected by Flimp "Flimp more than doubled that objective by increasing enrollment by 22% for 2009. I made my client look good, Flimp Media made me look good and the employees were the real beneficiaries."
Two SDP Flimp videosite communications video brochures were sent separately by email to the 6,500 employees during a two week period prior to the open enrollment period. A total of 2,532 viewers engaged with the SDP video communications representing 39% of eligible employees. Of those viewers, 2,353 or 93% were able to successfully play the flash video messages. After watching the introductory video message, a total of 1645 viewers clicked a response link for a response rate of 65%, a very favorable response rate given the nature of the communications. The average viewing time on the introductory SDP enrollment videosite was 1 minute 24 seconds per viewer and the combined Flimp viewing time on the primary SDP introductory communications was 38 hours 46 minutes. Viewers also spent 13 hours 42 minutes on Flimp videosites created for the Humana Specialty Benefits and ING insurance products.