Well, it’s about time someone actually started bashing the Geico ads in other ads (and making a vague denigration of the claim of “15 minutes could save you 15% or more” is hardly the best approach, as it’s the only thing in their ads that doesn’t really invite a harsh ridicule!), but this one slightly misses the mark, for my money. That’s mostly because I thought it actually was an ad for Geico until the end (!). Here’s how the ad plays out:
A mother in a pink hoodie gives her teenage son the car to drive for the first time (I think that’s the scenario, anyway), and she’s worried about him; so she asks a lizard sitting on a stone wall next to her driveway: “What’s our collision deductible on that car?” And, naturally, the lizard doesn’t answer. But it’s not the Geico gekko, and in fact, I don’t think that’s a gekko at all! So what I was expecting was for the ad to then say they were not asking the right lizard, and then have the Geico gekko say that you should be sure you have genuine Geico insurance to cover your car and your loved ones in such a situation. But instead, it ended up being an ad from Trusted Choice insurance, and they were making fun of the idea of asking a lizard about insurance stuff.
Well, my expectations notwithstanding, this is a good, fun ad that makes fun of the idea of Geico’s mascot, and then says you can trust their insurance agents for information, suggesting that it’s probably a better idea than asking a lizard about insurance. I like it! But I really think they should have used a recognizable gekko for the spot, just so we all know from the get-go what it’s all about. But then again, maybe they’re illegal to sell in the United States anyway. And maybe that’s why Geico uses a cartoon one: they got busted for trying to smuggle one in. (<That is a joke, and I am in no way accusing Geico, my own car insurance company, of engaging in illegal exotic animal smuggling. That’s that other insurance company, XXXXXXXX: they’re the ones that did it! But like I have said before, I mostly loathe Geico’s ad campaigns, so I love seeing them ridiculed.*)
Unbelievably, this ad appears not to be available for viewing on the Internet whatsoever. How lame! Don’t they realize that simply by posting a commercial spot on YouTube, people will watch it voluntarily and write about it (like I’m doing here, although admittedly because I saw it on TV), so they get lots and lots more free play for it? Or maybe that allows the ad agency’s client to generate more sales without having to shell out as much cash. (I never thought of that until now, actually… But now it makes sense.)
* (But, as I have said before on this blog, while I really dislike a lot of Geico’s advertising, I totally love their insurance service! So this is only against the annoying ads I can’t stand seeing over and over and over again. But I used to have a car a few years ago that seemed to break down every few weeks, and every time I needed them, Geico was there, and a person would immediately answer the phone and send me the help I needed within minutes. It was amazing! And they’ve been very honest, too: they don’t try to get you to pay more than you need to just because you don’t know what to ask for, and they don’t try to sell you stuff you don’t need, either. (Or, at least, they didn’t do that with me.) That’s something you can’t say about many companies these days, so while I really don’t like their ads much of the time, I thought I should clarify that it’s not because I hate Geico: they have been very good to me; although admittedly I have not had someone plow into my car (yet), so I don’t know how enjoyable it is to go through having a wrecked car fixed with Geico; but so far, they’ve been very good. So nothing against Geico the company. It’s just the ads: sometimes they drive me nuts!)
