The Brilliance of GEICO Ads

I don't know much about Geico I know they provide car insurance but I don't know if it's any good I'm not sure what kind of coverage they offer or at what prices or what their deductibles look like for all I know they could be one of the worst insurance companies out there but what I do know is that 15 minutes could save me 15% or more of my car insurance advertisements is something Geico has become known for so much so that they've overshadowed the product itself the Geico company is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway ran by Warren Buffett Geico has a tremendous advertising budget they've been known to spend over a billion dollars in a single year Ed's can be expensive when shown during big events such as the Super Bowl or the Oscars they could cost millions of dollars and how long do we really go without seeing a Geico commercial I'll bet you'll see one today at some point if you don't see it on TV it'll be on the internet in a magazine or on a billboard the industry of auto insurance is heavily reliant on advertising look at these insurance ads we've all come to know them Flo from progressive Jake from State Farm this guy from Allstate the insurance industry is all about getting your name out there it's the sort of industry where people are likely to go to whichever company is in their head at the time if I need to purchase some auto insurance I don't want to spend a tremendous amount of time on it I'll probably research the first company I think of and if their prices are reasonable I'm buying it therefore they have to compete so hard to implant their brand on my brain Geico has been quite successful with their heavy marketing approach the revenue has been increasing steadily and they've made a name for themselves in the industry Geico stands out from the other companies not just in the quantity of their ads but in the content of their ads they've turned the entire concept on its head common sense would tell you once something works stick with it people like things that are familiar to them and if it isn't broke why fix it once most companies have a marketing tactic that works well they milk it as much as they can take flow from progressive are going on 10 years of this campaign can anyone even think of a progressive ad that isn't centered around her there's nothing wrong with this method a big reason it's used is that it's so hard to come up with a successful campaign that once it happens it's foolish to let it go but you have to respect Geico for the diversity of their ads sure they have some old favorites that they keep going back to but they're constantly coming up with new concepts most companies are lucky if they could have one successful campaign Geico has done it several times I say Geico cos that's the company represented by the commercials but it's actually a company called the Martin agency that's behind many of them let's use a little metaphor here there's few things in this world that can't be explained through 1980s music and this is no exception most companies are like the culture club or a flock of seagulls they made one or two successful songs had a few others that may have charted but really nothing in comparison to those two not that the other songs are bad they just don't compare in popularity wendy's came up with where's the beef but haven't been able to capture that same magic again now Geico is the Michael Jackson of ad campaigns just producing hit after hit there comes a time when he could just sit back and coast on the hits he's already made but he doesn't he keeps going he creates things that are better and more popular than the ones before it after Thriller he could have walked away with nobody doubting his talent but then he comes back and hits us with bad Geico came up with her lizard in 1999 and could have sat back and coasted on its success but they kept at it and created hit after hit now I know what you're thinking I can't believe I'm listening to yet another person compare Geico to Michael Jackson well I know you've heard this all before so I'll move on so how are they able to produce hits with such consistency my theory is that since the insurance industry is about brand awareness more than anything else it gives the creator's more freedom car companies try to make good commercials but they also have to fit in the fact that they want awards for initial quality they were rated number one by a certain magazine and have six airbags and cupholders and seat warmers and satellite radio and have zero due at signing and can be leased for $1.99 a month for 72 months my point is that it's hard to make an entertaining commercial when you're trying to fit in so much product information Geico commercials typically don't feature the product at all the Geico company focuses on car insurance right can you think of many Geico commercials that even feature a car at least flo talks about progressives name your price tool this guy talks about cars and insurance constantly I've been watching Geico commercials for what seems like non-stop for 20 years and I know very little about their product I'm gonna go through a few of my favorite Geico campaigns these are no particular order we all know it's coming so let's first take a look at this gecko this is one of the Martin agency creations when the world first saw him in 1999 he was voiced by Kelsey Grammer this is my final plea I am a gecko not to be confused with Geico which could save you hundreds on car insurance so stop calling me Geico the entire premise is paper-thin the word Geico kind of sounds like the word gecko over the years he's become more British sounding and voiced by other actors he's become more realistic looking with advances in computer animation he's also become a spokesman for the company within the narrative of the commercials I would have to say that this is the longest-running and most successful of all the campaigns thank you Mon babysitting no kids no I'm not of course I'll with a kids you know a brother to me this is definitely the Billie Jean or thriller of Geico heads what I'm calling the Good News ads featured someone saying they had good news but the news was never what you would expect them to say they would set it up as if we knew what the news would be then throw the curveball with the punchline I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico I've got some fantastic news I'm not here know just save myself a bunch of money on my car insurance here's to me some good news yes sir well I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico not much about car insurance but it was funny and it put the idea into my head that I too could save a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico what I'm calling the googly eye money ads featured a stack of money with googly eyes staring at the screen what's this one have to do with car insurance it's just the money that you could be saving if you switch to Geico which could generally be used by any company so it doesn't exactly feature the benefits of Geico but just like all the others it's memorable and somehow entertaining oh and it features a Michael Jackson song car insurance the caveman ads these were ads for car insurance that featured cavemen what does that have to do with car insurance switching to Geico is so easy a caveman can do it so easy a caveman can do it but the hilarity of the ad came from the fact that the caveman were actually just like the modern man it's taking the caveman stereotype and flipping it some of these ads are around ten years old but we still remember lines from them to this day odd the roast duck I don't have much of an appetite thank you the popularity of the commercial grew so high the ABC ran a sitcom based on the premise imagine a commercial being so popular in having such a premise where a network can base an entire sitcom around it I've never seen the show but it was short-lived so maybe it wasn't quite as good as the commercial the next set I'm calling the question ads each ad featured two questions the first question being could switching to Geico really save you 15% or more on car insurance could switching to Geico really save you 15% or more on car insurance the second question was always different but the answer to it was always an obvious yes is it too tall Jones too tall again doesn't really stick to the topic of car insurance all that well but it does place the idea in my head that Geico could save me money plus it's funny it's really just a medium to tell a joke all the creator's had to do was think of funny questions that would have an affirmative answer is having a snowball fight with pitching great Randy Johnson and once people catch on to the idea of the campaign they look out for new questions in football announcer undress or make any sport exciting does a former drill such and make a terrible therapist does Elmer Fudd have trouble with the litter are one of these ads feature - pig squealing out a car window all the way home to parody the little piggy nursery rhyme I don't know how popular this one was nationally but I'd have to say this is my absolute favorite Geico ad just listen to this little guy and try not to laugh similar to the question campaign is the get happy get Geico campaign it was another format to tell jokes it's people talking about how happy they are with Geico folks who save hundreds of dollars switching the Geico sure are happy I'd say happier than a slinky on an escalator happier than Gallagher at a farmers market happier than Eddie Money running a travel agency happier than a witch at a broom Factory not much talk about car insurance but it makes me aware of Geico and puts a positive image of them in my head it's what you do this one is more recent similar to the last - it's a perfect format for telling jokes it's hard to explain exactly what it does so here are some examples if you're a free-range chicken your roam free it's what you do if your boss stops by you act like you're working it's what you do if you're in a horror movie you make poor decisions that's what you do the commercial always ends with if you want to save fifteen percent or more on your car insurance you switch to Geico it's what you do if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance you switch to Geico it's what you do no surprise that doesn't feature much about car insurance but it makes me think that it's an obvious choice if I want to save money the fast forward ads are sort of an ad revolution these are for the newly popular ads that show up before internet videos you may have seen one before this video the ad is simply a setup for a long ad then they fast forward to the end where it's typically questionable how they got there it's an ad adapted for a new format and shows Geico is always thinking of new ideas these are far from all the Geico ad campaigns the variety of ads are seemingly endless and I could be here all day if I featured every one of them what day it is oh come on I know you can hear me Mike Mike Mike Mike what day is it Mike Leslie guess what today is I tried to pick out the ones that were most popular and interesting and the ones I personally liked the most some people find these ads annoying and I'll admit they're not all home runs but overall I think these ads are innovative creative and funny but most of all they're effective I'm not running out to switch my car insurance to Geico I don't even think it's worth the 15 minutes to see if I could save 15% on my car insurance but I'm well aware of the company know what they provide and look at them in a positive light Geico because saving 15% or more on car insurance is always a great answer in the end this is what they were trying to accomplish and I'm guessing they've done it with most of you as well thank you for watching [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Company Man

Views: 504,291

Rating: 4.8868265 out of 5

Keywords: Geico, Advertising, Ad Campaign, Marketing, Insurance, Auto Insurance

Id: EQI2af3So5Q

Length: 12min 26sec (746 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 12 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/100_PERCENT_BRKB]

I saved $1200 by switching to GEICO

My former car insurance company tried to rob me this year, jacked the price WAY up. And Progressive was more expensive than GEICO

Also, I got the Berkshire shareholder discount-- the salesman said he had never given a shareholder discount before. He didn't know about the B-shares

[u/skeptophilic]

I always laugh that the first link on BRK's website is a GEICO ad.