In a case study released two years ago, J.D. Power and Associates explored a question — when did personal auto insurance become a laughing matter? — and found the answer in an arena of quirky oddballs: an apron-adorned, wide-eyed woman named Flo; a tuxedoed man called Mayhem with near-guaranteed misfortunes; and an Australian-accented gecko who can count cavemen as his compatriots.
What’s changed in those two years? Nothing, except that arena’s gotten bigger.
Online Auto Insurance (OAI) takes a snapshot of major insurers in its latest study, breaking down everything from how each insurer’s market share has grown or shrunk to advertising expenditures over recent years.
And don’t forget to come ringside to watch the fight for your auto insurance policy in this OAI infographic.
In this article post, we’ll review what (and who) the industry’s big players are using in their advertising campaigns as car insurers fight over a piece of the $174.5-billion pie (that was the total premium volume in the U.S. last year).
In Safe Hands, Allstate Adds Mayhem
If you want to make the argument that splitting a brand isn’t advisable, don’t take that talk to Allstate, which has long held the second-biggest market share in the American car insurance industry.
Allstate has shown two television campaigns with two very different attitudes.
First, they turned to an actor named Dennis Haysbert, better known as President David Palmer (boss to the Kiefer Sutherland-played super agent Jack Bauer in “24”) and Robert De Niro’s getaway driver in “Heat.”
Haysbert’s low-toned voice fit well with Allstate’s “In Good Hands” segments promising neighborly help in tough situations.
Then Allstate went the other way, relying on the antics from Deans Winters in its “Mayhem” series.
Throughout Winters’s extensive history, the actor has played a range of roles from Tina Fey’s bummy, beeper-selling ex-boyfriend on “30 Rock” to an Irish punk behind prison walls on “Oz.” Allstate took as many liberties as it could with that range, throwing him off of roofs, crowning him leader of the Trojan Army, and making him wear pink stunner shades.
Winters and his characters were offputting. And that was the key to consumers buying insurance to ward off “mayhem” that could strike at any time.
But this major insurer is looking in the rear view at a fast-approaching GEICO, which reports say sold more car insurance premiums than Allstate in the first quarter of 2013. This rare shift in the car insurance landscape can teach Allstate a valuable lesson in advertising: celebrities work a lot, but animals work all the time.
GEICO Lives in Animal House
The craziness of the frat house full of misfits in “Animal House” is an apt description for how GEICO has handled its huge stable of characters that front its ad campaigns.
Let’s start with the GEICO gecko, a longrunning staple with an Australian accent that most of today’s TV watchers can recognize better than Mister T.
Maybe it’s nostalgia with the gecko’s success, but GEICO has stuck to its animals-as-characters motif with Maxwell the Pig, who’s flown on planes, ridden jet skis, and tried to wiggle his way out of tickets. Maxwell has even graced the Super Bowl (aka nirvana for advertisers), partnering with former NFL quarterback Phil Simms for some pre-game entertainment last year.
It’s that cross-promotion that sets GEICO apart from many others in the industry. Whether it’s putting a pig with Phil Simms or using the Pillsbury Doughboy, Eddie Money, and Dikembe Mutombo in ads about happiness, GEICO’s campaigns are as diverse as they are memorable, even if they are a bit nonsensical.
State Farm Catches Sports Craze
But GEICO isn’t the only insurer to catch a cross-promotion craze with the wide world of sports.
The nation’s largest car insurer, State Farm, employed some big names in the sports world for a few ad series, coining the “discount double-check” phrase with Green Bay Packers QB Aaron Rodgers and birthing a twin for Clippers’ Chris Paul.
Sports again headlined for State Farm in a few single-commercial stints, bringing LeBron James to a lawn for some poppin’ and breakin’ and a Memphis Grizzlies mascot to a burglarize a home.
When State Farm did go outside of the sports world for its ads, it tried to stay funny. The “Magic Jingle” ads played on the insurer’s slogan, and even William Shatner joined in on the funny in his own State Farm ad.
In Campaign, Progressive Trades Flo for Suckers
Flo has been a mother to us all.
The red-lipsticked lady is everywhere, even a spot on Advertising Week’s “Walk of Fame” on Madison Avenue.
She made sure we put more in our piggybank.
She introduced us to Progressive’s Snapshot. When that didn’t work, she tried doing the same with Flobot.
But the woman who was in more than 80 commercials for Progressive is sharing the spotlight for the insurer’s promotion of Snapshot, its flagship usage-based program. So who’s she sharing it with?
Some rate suckers.
Progressive CEO Glenn Renwick said last year that Snapshot would see “exciting” changes in its Snapshot ad campaign this year, and Rate Suckers is certainly a change.
Progressive has relied before on the overly friendly Flo to pitch the Snapshot program, which uses an in-car device to record safe driving habits and reward them with lower premiums. But now, the insurer is turning to “Rate Suckers,” a campaign pitting good drivers (you) against bad drivers (everyone else), with your only possible repellent being the Snapshot program.
A Serious Side for Nationwide
But not all insurance ads are a laughing matter.
Nationwide took Progressive’s advice from Flo and added a woman’s touch to a campaign that debuted during last year’s Summer Olympics: famed pretty woman/stepmom/runaway bride Julia Roberts takes the mic for a smooth-voiced invite to “join the nation.” The soothing heart-warmer of an ad went light on the funny, opting for selling points of community and belonging.
But Nationwide wasn’t done there, tightening its tie for another serious turn in a partnership with acclaimed TV show “Mad Men.” The season-long sponsorship of the series delves into the company’s own decades-long history of slogans that eventually led to the current saying we’ve heard many times over: “Nationwide is on your side.”
Nationwide is also dipping its toe in cross-promotional waters, enlisting policyholder DeMarcus Ware (better known as the Dallas Cowboys’ bearish pass rusher and seven-time Pro Bowler) to front radio, digital, and print ads.
In an edging-on-corny statement from Nationwide, Ware said : “I’ve spent my entire professional career trying to break through protection. Now I’m looking forward to reversing that role by helping Cowboys fans understand how they can better protect the things that matter most to them through Nationwide Insurance.”
A Human Side for Liberty Mutual
Advertisers battled during last year’s Summer Olympics, and so did the ads themselves. That means Julia Roberts went heads-up with Paul Giamatti in the battle of promotional campaigns for insurers.
Unlike Julia, Giamatti (of “Sideways” fame) went a bit funnier in the “Humans” campaign, which highlighted the many mishaps that occur (and that insurance may cover) because of simple human error.
Although air conditioners dropped on cars or ketchup bottles splattered on blouses are slap-worthy offenses, there’s nothing like the reassuring voice of John Adams to sooth the nerves.
Farmers Group Hits its Funny Bone
In a tribute to the complexities of American capitalism, one of the largest insurance groups in the U.S. doesn’t even carry the name that is most common in households. With Farmers and 21st Century under its masthead, Zurich Insurance Group had the fifth-largest premium volume in 2012 and held that spot for years now.
Their weapons? A man we know best as Spider Man’s surly newspaper editor with a Hitler mustache and a real bespectacled man who actually has a mustache.
Both J.K. Simmons and that other guy hit plenty of funny bones with their sketches, the former for Farmers and the latter for 21st Century.
A side note: J.K. Simmons and Dean Winters (Allstate’s Mayhem character) worked together on HBO’s prison drama “Oz,” playing inmates Vern Schillinger and Ryan O’Reily, respectively. Their relationship can be described as a lot of murderous intent — the same can probably be said for insurance ads.
