advertising and other stuff. no, really.



Sunday, August 1, 2010

Could using a talking pig in a GEICO commercial save you money?



At first, I wasn’t sure where the latest GEICO series from Martin was going. It started with Too Tall Jones and Charlie Daniels. Yeah it had the template of Mike McGlone as Rod Sterling to frame it, but the scenarios for each one were so different you didn’t know what to think. Then came Lincoln and R. Lee Ermey. The campaign is now mixing in not just “What if?” scenarios but sayings brought to life. Whereas previously, any of these different themes would have been a jumping-off point to explore a full campaign in and of itself (testimonials, cavemen, the gecko, etc.). Here, the framework of “Could switching to...” allows anything to happen next, so you can get away with a range of skits. Consider now the extremes of going from a talking pig to Randy Johnson to a PBS auction spoof, yet they all work. (The pig is so over the top that it’s hard not to like the absurdity of it.) Will Mike be in a bathroom fielding what if scenarios from people on Twitter? Probably not. But the campaign is so open-ended that I wouldn’t be surprised to see them open it up to people that way.





2 comments:

Elyse said...

I have no idea if this ad will make me buy Geico insurance as I'm happy with what I have, but I sure have not forgotten it. If I hear the ad on TV, I stop and look up as I love it. It's just... bizarre and amusing.

Tim McLaughlin said...

I was in a doctor's waiting room on Monday, and some guy's cell phone goes off. His ringtone was the Geico pig. Who knows if the ad is selling any new policies for Geico, but it certainly has captured some attention.

As a side note, the woman playing the mom has the greatest facial expression at the end -- great acting and she cracks me up every time I see the spot.