mmarshall

If your area in CA is anything like mine, it's not just her on the airwaves over and over again. Its also the cartoon-General, the smooth-talking Allstate salesman, the GEICO lizard/cave man/money-stack eyes, the Nationwide identical-car-repair/price matches, the 21st Century interviews, and all of the other bombardment with car-insurance spots. You get to where you can repeat these ads in your sleep. In fact, I did a thread on that subject a little while ago....a discussion if auto insurance ads were getting out of hand.

IS-SV

Yep, and all that bloated tv ad spending gets added into the cost of doing business for the companies mentioned. I avoid doing business with all 3, they repel customers like me.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

among all insurance commercial icons, she's the one i like most already

MadMax96

If maybe Dennis Haysbert reprised his role as Pedro Cerrano from Major League and tried to sell me insurance as that character - I might just go with Allstate! He'd probably threaten a voodoo curse or something.

PhilipMSPT

iTrader: (5)

I'm sportbike-minded...

Jetfire

iTrader: (3)

he should dress up as david palmer and say that if you don't choose allstate, he'll send jack bauer after you.

MadMax96

Of course I was only thinking of models from the last few years. What about the Ducati 916 or the older 900SS, or even a Monster 900? I'd say those would qualify too..

Not sure if I see Flo as a sportbike chick though.....

PhilipMSPT

iTrader: (5)

She has always been shown as a biker babe for Progressive.

And inappropriately geared too.

mmarshall

She does one ad where she's speeding down the road next to a male biker, then gets off the bike and asks if she has any bugs in her teeth.

IS-SV

Time for a makeover for this brunette, IMO.

Lil4X

Flo is so annoying . . . but she's disturbingly cute and perky enough to get away with most of it. Oddly enough, those Progressive spots are pretty classic in their pitch: take one point, make it clearly and memorably. She's a screwball, but an earnest one - but you know at the end of the spot that Progressive offers motorcycle insurance, RV insurance, etc. They also make the point of low rates and customer service - something that other insurance companies fail to do in their commercials.

Those cavemen, money/eyes, and the lizard are a dead loss and totally unrelated to the product, while Allstate's Dennis Haysbert does a good job of a straight pitch that is on point. If I were in an accident, I'd feel better with Dennis handling my claim than either a lizard or a screwball brunette.

My favorite new auto insurance spots include Geico's series with actor Mike McGlone as a Robert Stack/Rod Serling character asking questions like "Does a former drill sergeant make terrible therapist?" (cut to a scene of R. Lee Ermey dressing down a patient like a recruit). These are simply hysterical - and I really don't care if they identify the product or make any kind of memorable product association. I don't believe many people could, after viewing one of these, tell you the name of the company. For that reason, sad to say, that like the other Geico spots, these are a total waste of money for the company.

Allstate seems to have found a great approach with "Mr. Mayhem" in the role of a teenage girl, a puppy, a windstorm, or any of a selection of other evil "characters" that can trash your car. While really creepy, Mayhem (Dean Winters, a veteran player of villainous characters on “Oz,” “Rescue Me” and “30 Rock”) makes a point of the kinds of things that can happen to your car and why you need something more than basic liability insurance. I would ad a tagline, perhaps by Haysbert saying something like, "Call your Allstate agent" to reinforce the company name with a much more trustworthy face.

Turbinator

Not interested, but that's just my opinion.

Turby

KILLERGS4

she sucks...

Infra

iTrader: (1)

Not the girl-next-door that I imagine.

+1 to the annoying. I groan every time I see a Progressive ad.


The point of a TV ad is not to inform the consumer in a 30 second window, but to create brand identity so that when one thinks "car insurance", one will instinctively have the brand pop into one's thoughts.

In that regard, Progressive's and Geico's ads are very successful, much more so than Allstate's - despite how annoying they may be.

Lil4X

You left out a word - POSITIVE - brand identity. If you instantly identify "car insurance" with a lizard, you aren't making an intelligent buying decision.

Now, intelligence really doesn't matter when selecting brands of asprin - that's why the Ted Bates agency revolutionized TV advertising in the late '50's and early '60's with the most irritating ads in the history of the medium. They were wildly successful despite being so grating that a number of viewers actually tuned out of them - and that was back when you had to get up and walk across the room to change the channel.

Brand ID is a touchy craft - all of the capital investment in that brand image is at risk when you go for an annoying ad.