It seems like every major insurance company has created an eye catching, entertaining, memorable mascot. Progressive has Flo, who is perky and energetic. Allstate has Mayhem, a menacing man who wears a suit and personifies all manner of dangers. Geico has the Gecko, who is animated, green, and extremely cute. Aflac has a white duck with a distinct, somewhat grating, voice. Or, at least it did.
The Aflac insurance company has been using a white duck as it’s mascot for years. It looks like a typical duck, but, if I had to guess, it might be a puppet or otherwise animated for at least part of their commercials. Usually, ducks say “Quack”, but the Aflac duck says “Aflac” instead. You probably have seen at least one of their commercials where two people are talking about some kind of accident that happened. The duck is walking nearby. The people just don’t know where to get insurance from, and the duck, rather obviously, starts screaming “Aflac”.
Insurance companies, like all other types of businesses, take special care in making a memorable, likable, mascot. A good mascot makes it easier for customers to quickly identify which insurance company is connected with an advertisement, and this tends to lead to more customers for that company. Of course, this only works if people happen to be fond of the mascot. If customers find the mascot to be annoying, or distasteful, that is going to be enough for many of them to choose a different insurance company to work with, instead.
This leads us to the strange story of how the Aflac duck lost it’s voice. For years, comedian Gilbert Gottfried was the voice of the Aflac duck. Like many comedians, Gottfried is known for making jokes that could be considered to be in poor taste, but will generally make most people laugh. However, he seems to have gone too far when he used Twitter to tweet jokes about the tsunami that recently occurred in Japan. Many people found his jokes to be too offensive.
This lead Aflac to fire Gilbert Gottfried, which basically left the Aflac duck without a voice. So, Aflac held a casting call in the hopes of finding a new voice for their mascot. By the time you are reading this, the casting calls, which took place online as well as in a few select cities nationwide, will have ended. It’s interesting that the insurance company didn’t choose to just hire a talented voice actor as a replacement. I cannot help but wonder what the new voice of the Aflac duck will sound like.
Image by Oldmaison on Flickr