GEICO

The 'Government Employees Insurance Company', usually known by the acronym 'GEICO', is an American auto insurance company. GEICO is a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway and, as of 2006, provided coverage for more than 10 million motor cars, trucks and other motor vehicles owned by more than 7 million policy holders. GEICO writes private passenger automobile insurance in the District of Columbia and in all U.S. states except Massachusetts.

Contents

History

Commercials

Stupid things

The GEICO gecko

Parodies

Good News

Bland salesman

Celebrities

Cavemen

My Great Rides

Geico Racing

15 Minutes Online

Skytypers

Competition

References

External links

History

GEICO was founded by Leo Goodwin and his wife Lillian Goodwin in 1936 to market auto insurance directly to federal government employees and their families.^[2] Goodwin was inducted into the Insurance Hall of Fame due to the success of the company. GEICO's business model was based on the assumption that such persons would constitute a more financially stable and less risky pool of potential insureds than the general public. After real-time access to computerized driving records became available in the 1970s throughout the United States, GEICO began to insure the general public in addition to its target demographics.
GEICO generally deals directly with consumers via the telephone and the Internet, freeing up capital that would otherwise be spent on employing insurance agents in the field and making the company the nation's largest direct writer of private auto insurance.GEICO at a Glance on company website GEICO does market their products through a small number of field agents, most of whom are based near military bases; more recently, GEICO has begun opening offices in locations other than near military bases. These agents are known as GFRs (GEICO Field Representatives).

Commercials

GEICO's advertising strategy incorporates a saturation-level amount of print (primarily mail circulars) and television parody advertisements, as well as radio advertisements. A common tagline used by GEICO is "fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance."

Stupid things

Early GEICO ads were animated and showed someone doing something stupid, such as pressing a button causing a cannon to fire at them. A voice over would then say "We all do stupid things. Paying too much for car insurance shouldn't be one of them." These were very short and were generally aired with two back-to-back.

The GEICO gecko

The company's ads usually focus on its reptilian mascot, the GEICO gecko, a talking Day Gecko created by The Martin Agency and most recently a CGI creature generated by Framestore CFC. The gecko first appeared in 1999 during the Screen Actors Guild strike that prevented the use of live actors. In the original commercial, where the gecko pleads for people to stop calling him in error, mistaking ''gecko'' for ''geico'', he was voiced by Kelsey Grammer. In the subsequent commercials, the gecko speaks with an East London British accent, because it would be unexpected, according to Martin Agency's Steve Bassett. Jake Wood, an English actor and comedian, is the current voice of the GEICO gecko. In current commercials the gecko's accent is more working-class (a typical Cockney accent), perhaps in an effort to further "humanize" him.^[3] "As computer animation got better and as we got to know the character better, we did a few things," says Steve Bassett, creative director at The Martin Agency. "We wanted to make him a little more guy-next-door. And he looks a lot more real than he's looked before."Gecko wasn't first choice for Geico. USA Today, July 16 2006. Retrieved Feb 16 2007.

Parodies

Another common theme is misdirection, in which the commercial appears to be about an unrelated product (or, in fact, may not even be a commercial) and suddenly changes to become a plug for GEICO. The commercials use a variety of fictional characters such as Speed Racer and Bill Dutchess as well as real people such as Tony Little spoofing themselves. Other commercials relate to a hair loss doctor who has saved by switching to GEICO, a nature show about a fish, and a soap opera of a couple who are breaking up. Another set of GEICO ads involved a fictional reality show called "Tiny House" in which contestants were forced to live in a half-scale house.
An additional commercial theme is the promotion of fictional products. In 2006 parody ads featured such products as long distance phone service, tomato soda, fast-food, and a reality TV show - in all cases, the parody portion of the ad ends with "but it won't save you any money on car insurance." After the GEICO slogan is heard, the commercials end with "Why haven't you called GEICO?" This use of fictional products in commercials is reminiscent of the Energizer Bunny campaign for batteries from the late '80s.
The parody pitch crossed over to the Caveman campaign (see below) in a recent 10 second spot that appears to be a talking heads news interview, but features the popular caveman.

Good News

In another ad campaign, a character would be breaking bad news to another, but then offer helpfully, "I've got good news," and explain, "I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to GEICO!" Some of the ads were parodies and/or featured celebrities, including, for example, Esteban. The exchange became parodied for a time while the ads were popular.

Bland salesman

In another series, a GEICO pitchman is played by actor Jerry Lambert in an extremely bland and understated way, parodying the stereotype of an insurance man, such as reading to some bored-looking kids, from a book of fairy tales about insurance. In one segment, he reads a supposed e-mail from a viewer saying it would be "the bomb", i.e. something good, if the Gecko would do a dance called "The Robot". Cut to the Gecko doing that dance smoothly and gracefully (to the tune of a not-for-public-sale melody called "Sweet World" by a group called "Comega Men"^[4]) and then back to the insurance salesman attempting to do the same dance, seemingly more stiffly than an actual robot would.

Celebrities

There are also GEICO ads that feature stories from GEICO customers about situations in which Geico assisted them, but narrated by celebrities such as Charo, Charlton Heston, Burt Bacharach, Little Richard, Don LaFontaine ("that announcer guy from the movies"), Peter Graves, and Verne Troyer. D.C. Douglas.

Cavemen

Main articles: GEICO Cavemen

A popular series of well-received advertisements uses cavemen as pitchmen. Also developed by the Martin Agency, the ads center on Neanderthal-like cavemen, no different from modern-day individuals (outside of the somewhat pre-historic facial features), encountering either an ad or commercial with the tagline "GEICO: so easy a caveman could do it," followed by their disgust with the supposed stereotype of cavemen stupidity. The ads posit a world where cavemen are still alive and active members of society in the present day, behaving and living nothing at all like the stereotypical caveman. The main characters presented in the ads are affluent, educated, and cultured, eating at fancy restaurants, going to exclusive parties, and seeing their therapists. The humor revolves around the relative normality of the cavemen's presence and their reactions to the stereotype represented in the ads, and their attempts at defending themselves from the stereotype.
The ads were so successful that the commercial actors are appearing in a successful series of interactive websites written and produced by GEICO's in house creative team at Caveman's Crib. New actors will be appearing in a spinoff TV series, titled ''Cavemen'', is being developed for ABC.

My Great Rides

In 2007, GEICO also launched a social networking site, My Great Rides, for motorcycle owners. My Great Rides is a place for cycle owners to share stories about trips they have taken on their bikes, as well as post pictures of their motorcycles, and comment on other members stories and pictures.

Geico Racing

The number 7 car of the NASCAR Busch Series driven is by Mike Wallace and is sponsored by GEICO. Commercials involving the race team are of a young boy claiming to be a relative of Mike Wallace and being a better driver. The boy says, "When people see Mike Wallace and the Geico number 7 doing well, they'll think of saving a bunch of money on car insurance. But when they see me, they'll say, 'There goes Lauren Wallace^[5]; the greatest thing to ever climb into a racecar.'"
In another commercial he states "When it comes to Mike Wallace, the story ends with me putting him into the wall".

15 Minutes Online

Another series of advertisement features separate Youtube videos of seemingly nonsensical actions, such as a hallway mattress fight, or a highly unusual collection of expressions uttered by a webcam user (Youtube's Brandon Hardesty). As the videos continue, an announcer states, "There may be better ways to spend 15 minutes online." Similar to the 'Stupid Things' ads, these commercials are also often aired back-to-back.

Skytypers

GEICO sponsors the Skytypers Air Show Team, which perform at airshows around the country using six SNJ-2 World War II-era planes. Known as skytyping, the aircraft perform low-level flying maneuvers while creating aerial smoke messages that are created via computer-controlled smoke puffs. On 7 September 2007, the lead pilot was killed after a rehearsal for the annual Naval Air Station Oceana airshow in Virginia Beach, Virginia.^[6]

Competition

GEICO's major competitors include State Farm, Allstate, Progressive, Nationwide and USAA. Progressive is particularly countered in their commercials, with many GEICO commercials countering Progressive's claims of being able to quote their rates and those of several of their competitors' rates by stating that GEICO quotes are only available at GEICO.com.

References

1. Revenue: premiums written (2004), from Berkshire Hathaway 10-K
2. History on company website
3. "Little Lizard Says 'Ello To A New Inflection", The Hartford Courant, 22 February 2006.
4. http://www.geico.com/fun/blog/blog19.htm
5. http://www.geicoracing7.com/photos.html Geico Racing
6. Pilot killed in stunt plane crash at Virginia Navy base, CNN.com, updated 10:31 p.m. EDT, Fri September 7, 2007

External links

★ GEICO official website