GEICO advertising campaigns


GEICO advertising campaigns are known for using surreal scenarios which attempt to be humorous and satirical, often featuring distinctive characters such as the company's mascot, the GEICO gecko. The advertising strategy incorporates a saturation-level amount of print and television parody advertisements, as well as radio advertisements. A common line used by GEICO is "15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance."
In the mid-1990s, insurance company advertising was considered novel and GEICO wanted to move towards insurance as a commodity rather than through a long-term relationship with a full service agent, as was the model at No. 1 State Farm. The predominant advertising for traditional insurance companies focused on the bad events which needed insurance and GEICO believed that its target audience felt that insurance was just another necessary expense. Many of the most prominent television ad campaigns, such as the GEICO Gecko, the GEICO Cavemen, the Rhetorical Questions campaign featuring Mike McGlone, Maxwell the Pig, and the GEICO Hump Day Camel were developed by the Martin Agency, which has held the contract since 1994.
Investor Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of GEICO parent Berkshire Hathaway, has stated that he would spend $2 billion on GEICO ads if he could, approximately double the spending in 2012, which was $1.1 billion, over twice that of second place Progressive Corporation, with 6.8% of premiums going into commercials. In 2018, GEICO was the top advertiser for YouTube, supplying 6% of its revenue. On television, GEICO was the top spender in the insurance category, with 27.9% of ad spend and 22.4% of impressions in its category. GEICO is the second largest television advertiser in the United States after Procter & Gamble, which advertises many more consumer products from its various brands compared to a single product.
However, this is offset by not paying agents commissions, since GEICO uses a direct to consumer model. This has resulted in GEICO being the second largest auto insurer in the United States.

Animated advertisements

In 1999, animated advertisements were part of the early GEICO Direct ads as well as the "Dumb Things" campaign. The 15-second long commercials, animated by Bill Plympton, featured a curious little man walking up to an object and eventually getting hurt due to his curiosity about the object. One of the commercials, for example, involved him finding a cannon and pressing a button, causing a resulting cannonball to fire out and stick to his face. The original saying in the commercial was "You could still save money on car insurance. Even if you made a few mistakes."; later modified to "We all do dumb things. Paying too much for car insurance doesn't have to be one of them."

The GEICO Gecko

The company's ads sometimes focus on its reptilian mascot, the GEICO Gecko, an anthropomorphic Day Gecko, who was created by The Martin Agency, modified in November 2005 to a CGI character by Animation Director David Hulin and his team at Framestore. The gecko first appeared on August 26, 1998, during the Screen Actors Guild strike that prevented the use of live actors. The original commercial features the Gecko voiced by actor Kelsey Grammer who climbs onto a microphone on a podium and utters "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!" before licking his eye. Later "wrong number" ads used Dave Kelly as the voice of the gecko. In the subsequent commercials with Jake Wood, the gecko speaks with an English Cockney accent because it would be unexpected, according to Martin Agency's Steve Bassett. In 2010s commercials, the gecko's accent is more working-class, perhaps in an effort to further "humanize" him.
Steve Bassett, creative director at The Martin Agency: Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former president Bill Clinton and then-Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, interviewed the GEICO Gecko in April 2013. He had since become GEICO's longest-running mascot, appearing in more than 150 commercials as of 2017. He also wrote an autobiography called “You’re Only Human”, released in 2013 by Workman.

Maxwell the Pig

Maxwell is an anthropomorphic talking pig and recurring character in GEICO advertisements. Maxwell debuted in an installment of the Rhetorical Questions campaign as the "little piggy who cried 'wee wee wee' all the way home" being driven home by a friend's mother, screaming along the way. While Maxwell was originally intended as a one-time character, the popularity of his debut commercial resulted in him being spun off into his own series of commercials which usually feature him as a tech-savvy, informative pig who is most concerned with his GEICO-related objects.

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, 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 caveman 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, jet-setting around the globe, and seeing a therapist. 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 and most recently, iHeartcavemen. A spin-off TV series, titled Cavemen and starring new actors, debuted on ABC in October 2007 to overwhelmingly negative critical reaction. It was canceled after only six episodes were aired.

Parodies

Another common theme is misdirection, in which the commercial appears to be about an unrelated product, suddenly changing to become a plug for GEICO. The commercials use a variety of fictional characters such as Speed Racer, Chatty Cathy, Jed Clampett, and Bill Dutchess. Other commercials relate to a hair loss doctor who has saved by switching to GEICO, an infomercial for a fake product called Wonder Glue, a nature show about fish, workout with Tony Little, and a soap opera of a couple who are breaking up.
An additional commercial theme is the promotion of fictional products. In 2006 parody ads featured such products as long-distance phone service, breakfast cereal, tomato soda, fast-food, a reality TV show and even poking fun at the Old Navy commercials – 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?"
In other parody commercials, a character would be breaking bad news to another, but then offers helpfully, "I've got good news: I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to GEICO!" That news, of course, is of no immediate use at all to the other character. The exchange became parodied for a time while the ads were popular.
The parody pitch crossed over to the Caveman campaign in 2007, in a 10-second spot that appears to be a talking heads news interview, but features the popular caveman.
In response to some of the parody ads, Seth Green and Matthew Senreich wrote a sketch using the character Jar Jar Binks in a parody of one of the celebrity ads for their second Robot Chicken Star Wars special.
MADtv also made a sketch parodying these ads using characters of Elmo and Carlos Mencia.
Actor Scott Whyte has made a series of commercial parodies, calling the company, "Schmeiko", while performing a series of impressions.

Bland salesman

In another series of ads, 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 a group of uninterested children from a book of fairy tales about insurance, watching a view of cats in the living room where a gecko is standing on the couch, relaxing on a hot tub with a couple, and a flashback about "Honk If You Like". In one segment, he reads a supposed e-mail from a viewer saying it would be "da bomb", if the Gecko would do a dance called "The Robot". Cut to the Gecko doing that dance smoothly and gracefully and then back to the insurance salesman attempting to do the same dance, seemingly more stiffly than an actual robot would. The newest commercial featuring the GEICO gecko depicts the Gecko receiving a business suit from the salesman, in order to present a more professional appearance, but he declines.

"Real service, real savings"

In this campaign, a real GEICO customer would present his/her testimonials, while a celebrity standing next to, or behind, the customer uses his/her signature styles to help get the customer's word across.
Some of these celebrities included:
The slogan exclusive to this campaign is "GEICO: Real service, real savings".

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. My Great Rides was taken down on 27 February 2012.

GEICO Racing

The number 7 car of the NASCAR Nationwide Series is driven by Mike Wallace and was sponsored by GEICO prior to 2009. Commercials involving the race team are of a memorably disdainful young boy, played by actor Eddie Heffernan 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; the greatest thing to ever climb into a race car.'"
The commercials are sometimes presented in an interview fashion, where an unseen narrator speaks to the ambitious go-kart driver. "What do you think of Mike Wallace?" the child is asked, to which he responds, "Whatever, he's out there selling car insurance, I'm out there to win." When questioned on his relation to the NASCAR driver, Lauren shakes his head and concludes, "I didn't say I wouldn't go fishing with the man, all I'm saying is if he comes near me, I'll put him in the wall." To which the narrator questions him, "You don't race in the Busch Series." Lauren replies "Listen, go-kart track, grocery store, those remote controlled boats; when it comes to Mike Wallace the story ends with me putting him in the wall."
New ads in this lineup include Lauren referring to himself as being, "100 miles away and ready to strike," and "lightning in a bottle."
The success of those ads resulted in the launch of an interactive website written and produced by GEICO's in-house creative team at GEICO Garage. The site includes cameo appearances by Lauren Wallace and drivers Mike Wallace, his daughter Chrissy Wallace, Speed TV's Tommy Kendall, Paul Tracy, Christian Fittipaldi and Max Papis.

''TRS: The Real Scoop''

Introduced on 2 August 2007, this series of ads features an E! True Hollywood Story-type show about famed fictional characters such as Fred Flintstone, Jed Clampett, and even a Cabbage Patch Kid named Ben Winkler claiming to have their cars insured by GEICO, featuring interviews with made-up investigators. These commercials were voiced over by narrator David O'Brien.

The money you could be saving with GEICO

Starting in 2008, GEICO has aired a series of TV ads featuring two paper-banded stacks of U.S. bills with a pair of big, googly eyes on top. Kash, who never says anything, just sits and stares at people, set to a remix of a Rockwell/Michael Jackson song, "Somebody's Watching Me" by Mysto & Pizzi.

Rhetorical question campaign

From December 2009 to May 2012, GEICO introduced another advertising campaign in which Mike McGlone walks into an empty room and queries the viewer, "Could switching to GEICO really save you 15% or more on car insurance?" After this, he pauses and then asks a rhetorical and/or obvious question which is immediately followed by a scene cut to the subject at hand.
Such questions have included :

Television

In 2019, GEICO began re-airing the commercials probably as to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the campaign.

''Short Stories and Tall Tales''

Starting in 2010, there have been TV commercials in which a nursery rhyme, being read to the audience from an illustrated book entitled Short Stories and Tall Tales, turns into an ad for GEICO homeowner's and renters insurance:
Near the end of 2010, a new advertising campaign began made up of amateurish computer animated advertisements, supposedly made in 15 minutes, created with the computer software program Xtranormal.

"Easier Way to Save"

Starting in the summer of 2011, a new series of advertising involved people discovering unusual ways to save money.

Television

This campaign shows two people in a sticky situation. One of them is not as worried as the other, explaining "I'm looking on the brighter side. I save over 15% on my car insurance by switching to GEICO."
Commercials from this campaign include:
From April 2012 to May 2013, GEICO had a family of commercials where bluegrass pickers named Ronnie and Jimmy talk about how happy saving money on insurance can make someone do certain things intended to be humorous:
This campaign involves paintings in a museum encouraging their fellow paintings to switch to GEICO.
From June 2013 to November 2014, a family of TV ads came on where one person reads a GEICO ad, which has the well-known tagline and a second person says "Everybody knows that." to which the first person says, "Well, did you know ..." followed by an amusing "fact" which is then illustrated in a cutaway scene. Prior to Did you know Pinocchio was a bad motivational speaker?, the closing line was temporarily changed to "GEICO: 15 minutes could save you... well, you know."
From August 2014 to September 2017, a family of commercials featured people doing irrelevant or weird actions, while in the end the long-time endboard narrator says, "If , you . It's what you do. If you want to save 15% or more on car insurance, you switch to GEICO. It's what you do." When the ads appear in a movie theater before the previews start, the second line would be replaced with, "If you're in the movie theater, you silence your cell phone. It's what you do."
Debuted in 2015, these ads employ a satire of the technique of frame freezing, by showing live actors attempting to mimic a freeze-frame, often in awkward positions and sometimes assisted by intentionally visible stunt tools, such as suspension cords when paused in mid-air. The premise is that when viewing ads on sites like YouTube, usually a viewer cannot skip the ad until 5 seconds in then the commercial announcer saying "You can't skip this GEICO ad because it's already over" then the commercial announcer saying the GEICO slogan. If a user watches the entire video, events turn disastrous.
Debuted in 2016, these ads show the beginning portion of a 45–90-second ad before a blue screen disclaimer appears telling the viewers that the ad is being fast forward to the end portion so that they can get to their video faster. If an extended version of the ad or just the regular 15-second ad is shown on sites like YouTube, the viewer is usually welcome to skip the ad when 5 seconds have been used.
Debuted in July 2016 until February 2018, these ads depict celebrities or historical figures in outlandish situations.

TV

These ads show a person seemingly in trouble, until they state that switching to GEICO could save you money on car insurance; at which point this unrelated answer is accepted as a great answer.
From November 2016 to July 2017, a series of TV ads shows two people talking about GEICO, and one of them saying he/she should "take a closer look" at it; the camera then focuses on an inanimate object or animal in the background, which starts talking about the insurance company.
Since 2017 during ESPN's College GameDay, the VO's tagline: "You had one job, brought to you by GEICO" and referee Shaun Irving blows his whistle to do jobs right.

Expect more

Since November 2017, there have been ads in which one person is talking to another person about switching to GEICO and during each cut, the one who switched to GEICO gets more stuff.
Since 2018, the announcer proclaims interrupting your video for multiple GEICO ads at the end of each ad and proclaims "We interrupt this message to bring you our logo."

Count on GEICO

Since October 2017, there has been a new campaign in which humorous situations are presented as spokesman Steve Tom says, "As long as , you can count on GEICO saving folks money."
Since February 2018, there has been a new campaign that breaks the fourth wall revealing the actors are actually in an advertisement for GEICO, as revealed by spokesman David Ebert.
Starting in March 2018, a new campaign began in which new homeowners or renters result to strange tactics to relieve stress, to which a friend or neighbor informs them GEICO can help with homeowners/renters insurance.
Starting in August 2018, a new campaign began where people express disbelief over the fact that switching to GEICO saves you 15% on car insurance, while another person who happens to notice something unbelievable nearby assume they are talking about what they are seeing.
Starting in September 2018, a new campaign began where people saying GEICO makes it so easy with an app, it's not just easy, it's a something easy. They show us how easy it is to switch to GEICO.
This campaign, launched December 14, 2018, brought ten classic GEICO commercials back into rotation. Additional wraparounds depicted an 80's family watching the commercials, inviting viewers to and vote for their favorite commercial, with the winner receiving a chance to be in a new GEICO commercial. The contest ended February 5, 2019.

If You Ride, You Get It

Eyewitness Interviews

Technology Truths

Technology Truths is a campaign about humorous uses of technology contrasted with saving money on car insurance.
GEICOween is a Halloween-themed campaign featuring Halloween icons such as Casper the Friendly Ghost and tropes from teen horror films.

Sequels

This campaign, launched December 2019, revived three classic GEICO characters in two commercials each, asking the viewers to vote for their favorite characters.