Commercials are designed to catch the attention of the viewers. Companies pay enormous sums of money to have their ad played during the Super Bowl, when they know that millions of people will be watching. A good commercial will be memorable, entertaining, and will keep the company the ad is for in the minds of the viewers. What are your favorite Insurance commercials?
The purpose of a commercial is to entice the people who view the ad to actually go purchase the product or service that the commercial was for. The best ones are talked about long after the commercial ends. Ideally, people will remember the company that the commercial was for, and not just the amusing or shocking images that the commercial included. The commercials that aired during the Super Bowl tend to be the most extravagant, and often include celebrities.
Traveler’s Insurance has a touching commercial that shows a dog worrying about how to make sure his bone is safe. At the end of the ad, a small red umbrella appears in the air over the bone, which is resting in the dog’s bowl, “protecting” it. The red umbrella is the trademark of Traveler’s Insurance.
Many insurance companies use an easily recognizable character in their commercials. Geico uses a small, green, animated gecko lizard, who has a British accent, as it’s “spokesperson”. There are an entire series of these ads, but my favorite one is the ad where the Gecko is at an insurance convention, where he gets almost completely covered by a name tag sticker, that the woman at the check in table insists he wear. I prefer the Geico ads with the cute Gecko to the ones they used to do that featured the Cavemen.
Progressive Insurance uses a character named Flo, who is perky, super happy, and really excited to help people find a great deal on insurance. Flo is the epitome of a person who truly loves her job. I bet at least a few people decided to dress up as Flo on Halloween last year. State Farm has a series of commercials where something goes wrong, that requires an insurance claim to be filed. Someone sings the State Farm jingle, and, magically, a State Farm agent appears and makes everything better.
Another way to get people to watch a commercial is to put a celebrity in it. A few years ago, Kevin Federline appeared in a commercial for Nationwide Insurance. The ad shows him as a fast food worker, getting yelled at by his manager, for daydreaming that he is a successful rap star.
Dean Winters is in a series of Insurance commercials by Allstate. He plays a character named “Mayhem”, who causes damage to your car. “I am a random windstorm”, says Mayhem, before shaking a tree branch down onto a car. My favorite commercial in this series starts with “I am a teenage girl”.
Image by _e.t on Flickr