The yellow puff ball made me sit and think too. My conclusion is that insurance might be a field where each company doesn't have much to differentiate itself from the others. Your experience of your insurance company should be hardly noticing them at all. Pricing is too customer-specific to advertise reliable and legible discounts. All they have is branding.
My Old Man used to worked in insurance for 40 years. That's literally why these ads are the way they are. I don't, and I assume you don't either, care who's insuring you. You only think about it when your rate goes up or when you need to use it. And to Jeff's point, it is an arms race that started with popularity of GEICO's silly ads in the late 90's amongst Gen X. It had all the Ad Guys at his company simultaneously salivating about the potential and shitting their pants about being behind the curve.
It reminds me of prescription medication ads. Using insurance and using prescription medicine have legal, medical, financial and ethical guardrails, so direct to consumer marketing of term life insurance or Zoloft makes me think there are ulterior motives. I assume the cute marketing is meant to undermine the inherent assumptions that insurance companies all suck and Big Pharma is bad.
"Probably more people know Liberty Bibberty than their member of Congress"
I admit my long-term memory has been so corrupted by commercial jingles that I'm having a hard time remembering my Congressperson's name, but I think it might be Lauren-y Boebert-y? Something like that.
Okay, in return for you introducing me to this brilliant ecosystem I am now willing to forgive you for being a filthy casual in the Steak-Umms fandom…
On a slightly more serious note however, I’m actually going to take the complete opposite view and say stuff like this is absolutely brilliant and exactly the right way to go for advertising for two reasons. Firstly, it seems to be an increasingly common argument (which unless I’m misremembering you may even have made yourself) that whilst beneficial in some ways, the decline in linear TV and rise of ad free streaming has come with a fair few drawbacks which have negatively impacted parts of the industry. You can already see it in the way that streaming is moving back to some degree of ads, and there seems to be a growing consensus (particularly amongst middle aged nerds, who are of course *objectively* the demographic with the best taste) that it is both necessary and beneficial for the TV industry to move back in that direction.
At that point, if you’re going be watching ads anyway, it then simply becomes a question of whether you are going to be watching intelligently made ones or lazy ones, and at that point I’m not really sure why someone would pick lazy ones? If the ads can become almost as entertaining as the content itself, you aren’t losing anywhere near as much from having your viewing time taken up by them; as a Brit and fan of ultra low budget D-movies, I watch a lot of stuff off both Channel 4 and ITV, and also Tubi and Plex, and if the ads where anywhere near as good as these it would make the whole viewing experience much more enjoyable.
These examples are good, but if you want the pinnacle of what genuinely entertaining advertising looks like, I can highly recommend this ad from a UK IPA brewery, which is genuinely one of the coolest things I think I watched in a cinema in 2023: https://youtu.be/4x7EzB_TIKo?is=dVqhV94vTk3QcL6a
The other side of things is that fundamentally the goal of an ad is to get you to buy the thing, and the best way to do that is to get you to associate the thing with some sort of (usually specific) positive feeling. That’s a good thing! Done right, an ad should make the experience of eat their food, using their devices, buying their insurance that bit more enjoyable, and provided it’s done in moderation (and ideally the other advertisers are just as good at it as they are) there isn’t really anything lost from this - the fact that getting a Coke a Christmas or whatever feels right just makes Christmas more enjoyable in a way in which nobody loses.
This is one of the reasons why I’m actually less anti-product placement in movies than most people and think it could be another way out the current media rut. Sure, done badly everyone hates it, but that’s already widely known and punished - the trick is to do it right. One good example of this is the recent film Mayday, which makes a point out of going to a McDonald’s at the end in a positive light. Again, good! I want eating a McDonald’s to feel like eating a piece of pure Americana, and if Mayday helps me do this than both me and McDonald’s gain. You could argue this could be harmful in encouraging unhealthy eating, but I feel like the better solution here is for healthy foods to up their game and do a better job!
If you want another peak example of this in play, I would look to the movie Brigsby Bear, which is A: absolutely brilliant and plays directly into the tastes of this blog’s audience, and B: features a bit of product placement for Coca-Cola which is both extremely prominent and focused upon, whilst also fitting seamlessly and naturally into the movie in a way that doesn’t feel in the slightest bit intrusive or inappropriate at all and arguably improves it. It’s the perfect example of a symbiotic relationship - your existing associations with Coke improve the movie, and the movie improves existing associations with Coke. This is what we need more of!
As someone who got bargain bin HBO and now gets an hour's worth of genAI trash mobile casino ads every week, I agree that effort is better than no effort.
Insurance companies are the most bureaucratized, slow, and inefficient companies that exist. I guarantee you the reason is the ad guys have “Create new and eye catching ads” as part of their job descriptions, and the only way they can do that with controversy is by coming up with new mascots.
Or they see other insurance companies introducing Jake’s gay lover he’s cheating on his wife with or whatever so now they have to it too so as not to fall behind.
Actually, we're already past insurance company extended universe marketing and are balls deep into cosplaying at insurance mascot-cons. A lot of women who can't pay their bills using OnlyFans are earning big bucks by appearing at Cons as "Flo But With Huge Tits" and "Gecko But With Huge Tits" and "Liberty Bibberty But Wearing A Thong."
We're also discovering the real reason insurance companies deny claims: all their operating budgets are tied up in extended universe marketing campaigns. FREE LUIGI!!!
???? Is the image group a game of “What doesn’t belong and Why?”
A high school student, a dental assistant, a psych professor, kids toys, and a lizard? I’m not sure what the message is other than we shouldn’t fear aliens any time soon.
The yellow puff ball made me sit and think too. My conclusion is that insurance might be a field where each company doesn't have much to differentiate itself from the others. Your experience of your insurance company should be hardly noticing them at all. Pricing is too customer-specific to advertise reliable and legible discounts. All they have is branding.
My Old Man used to worked in insurance for 40 years. That's literally why these ads are the way they are. I don't, and I assume you don't either, care who's insuring you. You only think about it when your rate goes up or when you need to use it. And to Jeff's point, it is an arms race that started with popularity of GEICO's silly ads in the late 90's amongst Gen X. It had all the Ad Guys at his company simultaneously salivating about the potential and shitting their pants about being behind the curve.
It reminds me of prescription medication ads. Using insurance and using prescription medicine have legal, medical, financial and ethical guardrails, so direct to consumer marketing of term life insurance or Zoloft makes me think there are ulterior motives. I assume the cute marketing is meant to undermine the inherent assumptions that insurance companies all suck and Big Pharma is bad.
"Probably more people know Liberty Bibberty than their member of Congress"
I admit my long-term memory has been so corrupted by commercial jingles that I'm having a hard time remembering my Congressperson's name, but I think it might be Lauren-y Boebert-y? Something like that.
Okay, in return for you introducing me to this brilliant ecosystem I am now willing to forgive you for being a filthy casual in the Steak-Umms fandom…
On a slightly more serious note however, I’m actually going to take the complete opposite view and say stuff like this is absolutely brilliant and exactly the right way to go for advertising for two reasons. Firstly, it seems to be an increasingly common argument (which unless I’m misremembering you may even have made yourself) that whilst beneficial in some ways, the decline in linear TV and rise of ad free streaming has come with a fair few drawbacks which have negatively impacted parts of the industry. You can already see it in the way that streaming is moving back to some degree of ads, and there seems to be a growing consensus (particularly amongst middle aged nerds, who are of course *objectively* the demographic with the best taste) that it is both necessary and beneficial for the TV industry to move back in that direction.
At that point, if you’re going be watching ads anyway, it then simply becomes a question of whether you are going to be watching intelligently made ones or lazy ones, and at that point I’m not really sure why someone would pick lazy ones? If the ads can become almost as entertaining as the content itself, you aren’t losing anywhere near as much from having your viewing time taken up by them; as a Brit and fan of ultra low budget D-movies, I watch a lot of stuff off both Channel 4 and ITV, and also Tubi and Plex, and if the ads where anywhere near as good as these it would make the whole viewing experience much more enjoyable.
These examples are good, but if you want the pinnacle of what genuinely entertaining advertising looks like, I can highly recommend this ad from a UK IPA brewery, which is genuinely one of the coolest things I think I watched in a cinema in 2023: https://youtu.be/4x7EzB_TIKo?is=dVqhV94vTk3QcL6a
The other side of things is that fundamentally the goal of an ad is to get you to buy the thing, and the best way to do that is to get you to associate the thing with some sort of (usually specific) positive feeling. That’s a good thing! Done right, an ad should make the experience of eat their food, using their devices, buying their insurance that bit more enjoyable, and provided it’s done in moderation (and ideally the other advertisers are just as good at it as they are) there isn’t really anything lost from this - the fact that getting a Coke a Christmas or whatever feels right just makes Christmas more enjoyable in a way in which nobody loses.
This is one of the reasons why I’m actually less anti-product placement in movies than most people and think it could be another way out the current media rut. Sure, done badly everyone hates it, but that’s already widely known and punished - the trick is to do it right. One good example of this is the recent film Mayday, which makes a point out of going to a McDonald’s at the end in a positive light. Again, good! I want eating a McDonald’s to feel like eating a piece of pure Americana, and if Mayday helps me do this than both me and McDonald’s gain. You could argue this could be harmful in encouraging unhealthy eating, but I feel like the better solution here is for healthy foods to up their game and do a better job!
If you want another peak example of this in play, I would look to the movie Brigsby Bear, which is A: absolutely brilliant and plays directly into the tastes of this blog’s audience, and B: features a bit of product placement for Coca-Cola which is both extremely prominent and focused upon, whilst also fitting seamlessly and naturally into the movie in a way that doesn’t feel in the slightest bit intrusive or inappropriate at all and arguably improves it. It’s the perfect example of a symbiotic relationship - your existing associations with Coke improve the movie, and the movie improves existing associations with Coke. This is what we need more of!
As someone who got bargain bin HBO and now gets an hour's worth of genAI trash mobile casino ads every week, I agree that effort is better than no effort.
Insurance companies are the most bureaucratized, slow, and inefficient companies that exist. I guarantee you the reason is the ad guys have “Create new and eye catching ads” as part of their job descriptions, and the only way they can do that with controversy is by coming up with new mascots.
Or they see other insurance companies introducing Jake’s gay lover he’s cheating on his wife with or whatever so now they have to it too so as not to fall behind.
Actually, we're already past insurance company extended universe marketing and are balls deep into cosplaying at insurance mascot-cons. A lot of women who can't pay their bills using OnlyFans are earning big bucks by appearing at Cons as "Flo But With Huge Tits" and "Gecko But With Huge Tits" and "Liberty Bibberty But Wearing A Thong."
We're also discovering the real reason insurance companies deny claims: all their operating budgets are tied up in extended universe marketing campaigns. FREE LUIGI!!!
???? Is the image group a game of “What doesn’t belong and Why?”
A high school student, a dental assistant, a psych professor, kids toys, and a lizard? I’m not sure what the message is other than we shouldn’t fear aliens any time soon.
I believe Flo from State Farm was briefly on Mr. Show, so lifetime pass.
And she didn't even ruin it by going to the January 6th riot! 😅