We’ve all seen it (whether we like it or not): Geico’s ad with the “this little piggy (who) went ‘wee, wee, wee’ all the way home”. Right? Actually, now there’s three of them: one in the car, another doing street luge, and another on some ski-lift cable thingy. Only on the cable ride, he’s not going home, so it’s an inaccurate representation! Piggies only go “wee, wee, wee” on the way home, so this is clearly false advertising! I’m outraged! And to think I get my car insurance from these liars who grossly misrepresent fictional characters’ attributes and stereotypical behavior! Well, I never!
Actually, while annoying, it’s kind of cute, and my mom likes these ads, so I can’t bash them too much. But oddly, because she said she liked the pig going “wee, wee, wee”, because it’s from that children’s poem counting down the toes, which was popular when she was a child, it reminded me of the other pigs in the poem, and that some of the other ones might make even better spots for Geico to hawk their car insurance. I mean, I knew about the piggy being a reference from that poem, but I didn’t think any further into that idea because I found the ad kind of obnoxious and unrelated to Geico’s products and services, and I really don’t like ads that completely ignore the whole reason they’re running an ad in the first place: to sell a product (in this case, car insurance).
So many ads do this: show something funny or stupid or annoying or obnoxious, and then just say the company’s name at the end, which we all promptly forget (if we don’t block it out from sheer spite or trauma), and then we ask ourselves: “What was the point of that?” (We remember this one is Geico because they repeat the ad so many times, we can’t help it after awhile. But they might not have to run it so often if it made sense for their company, and it told us why we should do business with them, as opposed to just trying to be flashy.) But the other little piggies could have relatable stories, and then they could progress through the campaign to get to the one that goes “wee, wee, wee” all the way home, and it would make sense as an ad for car insurance, and make sense as being an idea that progresses through the series of other piggies, culminating in the funny ad with the piggy that goes “wee, wee, wee” all the way home, sensibly relating with the idea of driving and car insurance. (In fact, the piggy going “wee, wee, wee” could simply be a tag onto one ad about another of the piggies.)
Okay, here’s what I mean: Say Geico started with an ad with one of the other piggies: just for the sake of argument, the one who goes to market. So this little piggy goes to market, and while they’re there, someone else (maybe a wolf or a fox?) drives into their parked car and dents it all in. But not to fear, for the little piggy has Geico insurance, so the car is fixed. Then they could show an ad with the little piggy who “had none”, which could refer to car insurance, rather than roast beef, since what self-respecting pig would murder their farm mates (cows) to eat? That’s just rude! Then they’d never be permitted to herd sheep, for fear they’d just run off and kill them all for a blood orgy of flesh feasting! (That’s a reference to the movie Babe, and its original ending, which was changed because it focus-grouped poorly.)
So anyway, this little piggy has none (as in no car insurance), so when it drives the car somewhere, it could get crashed into by another driver without insurance, or worse yet, it could accidentally smash into another car and get into trouble for having no insurance and get sued and arrested and all that fun stuff. And so there we learn that it’s important to have car insurance. And in the last spot in the campaign, the piggy who went to market could pick its son up from school, and this little piggy goes “wee, wee, wee” all the way home, and it would sensibly tie in to the previous commercial that we all know is about car insurance, and they could talk about how the older piggy has peace of mind because its son is protected by Geico’s insurance, etc. And then it would all make sense, rather than just being silly and annoying.
See what I mean? It could have been a campaign concept that works with car insurance, rather than a one-off that uses an annoying idea that’s pretty much unrelated to what the ad is ostensibly selling. (Although it did become a campaign of its own, this little piggy who goes “wee, wee, wee”, originally it was a part of another Geico campaign, where the annoying guy says: “Could switching to Geico really save you yadda yadda...?” I guess people must like it, or else Geico just wants to inflict it on us, so they expanded the piggy into its own campaign.) And while some people like this ad, I still think it might have been better had they said the little piggy goes “wee, wee, wee” all the way home because he’s got peace of mind due to being covered with car insurance from a reliable company, and because he’s saving money too. Because after all, it's easier to have fun when you've got no worries, and it's easier to have no worries when you know you're covered by good insurance. (But they don't tell us that. I think maybe they should, just to remind us why we should want to buy insurance from them. Because after all, isn't this advertising stuff supposed to generate business for them? And this piggy, while cute, doesn't make me think about buying insurance.)
Here’s the original piggy commercial:
Here’s the zip-line ad:
And here’s the street luge spot:
