I usually hate Geico ads. I even switched car insurance companies a few years ago from Geico to another company because I hated Geico’s ads so much. But I switched back, because Geico’s service was way better, and they never failed me when I needed them, which I did a lot back when I had an unreliable European car that broke down all the time. (The other company had great ads at the time, with a cartoon super-girl with pink hair, but their service was awful. So their new ads are perfect for them: They’re terrible spots showing annoying and incompetent people, so at least they’re being honest now.) I’m surprised Geico never has used their great service as a selling point, but hey: maybe I’ve been lucky, and they’ve been great with me by accident. You never know. (Perhaps God had mercy on me for having such bad luck with that car, but Geico's service has always been so uniformly excellent in my experience, it's hard to think it was just a fluke. So why don't they mention that in their ads?)
Anyway, so like I said: I’ve never been a big fan of Geico’s commercials. They’re annoying, stupid, insufferable: you name it! If it’s lame, they’ve done it. And this gets to the theory of what type of ads work best I learned back in the 1990s. I took a class with some ad industry professionals in New York City in the early ‘90s, and they taught us that there are two types of ads that work the best for getting people to actually buy stuff (which is their whole reason for being in the first place!), and those two types are: 1.) Informational ads, which tell you about the product, and 2.) Annoying ads you can’t forget. I think the Geico ad guys must have taken that class, too (but were too lazy to want to inform anyone). But for me, when I hate an ad, I make a point of not buying that product because their ads make me angry. Geico is the only exception to this rule, and it’s only because they earned my business with great service. And they did drive me away with the ads for a while.
So here, finally they’ve made an ad that I like! I can’t believe it! And it’s one of those ones where the annoying jerk guys says: “Could switching to Gieco really save you 15% or more on car insurance? Does a blah blah blah?” Wow, what a surprise! So this one has that super-irritating guy say that crappy aforementioned line, and then he says: “Do people use smartphones to do dumb things?” And then they have these three silly white-collar jerks in an office playing around on their stupid touch-screen iPhone apps, and it’s hilarious!
So here is the ad, if you haven’t seen it:
You may not be as enthusiastic about this one as I am, but hey: at least there are no more caveman ads! Those were kinda fun to begin with, but they really got old fast, and they just kept making and running them over and over and over again! Ugh! (<Caveman sound effect.)
BTW: After writing this, I noticed Geico began running this one particular ad over and over again and dropped most of the others from this particular series. That is not to say that I influenced this (they probably, like me, noticed this one was the best and acted accordingly), but they did manage to beat us over the head with this ad until it lost its charm. This happens so often too, this running fun ads into the ground with over-saturation, doesn’t it? It’s a shame.
BTW: After writing this, I noticed Geico began running this one particular ad over and over again and dropped most of the others from this particular series. That is not to say that I influenced this (they probably, like me, noticed this one was the best and acted accordingly), but they did manage to beat us over the head with this ad until it lost its charm. This happens so often too, this running fun ads into the ground with over-saturation, doesn’t it? It’s a shame.
