Geico 3 sets of Commercials why?
What do Cavemen, geckos, and eyeballs on money have to with each other? Outside of being a triumvirate of successful marketing campaigns, not a heck of a lot. When someone looks at Geico’s advertising outside of it being really solid and quite humorous they don’t make a whole lot of sense on the surface. Why would a company create 3 different personas? Won’t this cause confusion in their customer base?
When you look back at some of the posts we’ve discussed previously around messaging it becomes a little more clear. You have a messaging statement built on 3 pillars.
Ad Campaign: Gecko ads
Pillar: Name recognition and trusted in the Insurance Industry
This was the opening gambit of Geico. The idea was the name Geico wasn’t memorable and wasn’t really interesting. By creating a mascot gecko and playing off the confusion between the name Geico and the Gecko they created a playful way to address the lack of brand awareness.
As the branding became more widespread the gecko ads the messaging transitioned from awareness to trusted and reliable.
Ad campaign: Cavemen ads
Pillar : Ease of Use
Tagline: So easy a Caveman can use it.
This pillar is directed at reducing the fear customers have of removing an insurance salesperson from the equation. By going online and direct Geico is able to maintain higher margins and have a leaner organization. The challenge they faced was how to get the average consumer to overcome the uncertainty of going online, picking their own policy, and not having an “expert” to assist them in the purchase decision.
Ad Campaign: Money-eyes
Pillar: Money saving offer.
Tag Line: Its the money you could be saving with Geico
Another brilliant way of conveying the message in a playful and interesting way. This is much more effective than just claiming they save money and moving on to the next bullet point on their value proposition.
Big Picture
Geico promises to save you money, while offering you an easy ordering process, and standing behind their product with reliable trusted service. This is one heck of a mouthful, and its extremely dry. Geico needed to break it up in such a way to drive excitement and engagement, as it is a service that requires direct response in its sales channel. Three sets of commercials bring the value that one just couldn’t.
I’m not clear on your position with this posting. Are you supportive of Geico’s marketing approach or are you against it?
Several of your other posts have highlighted the need for consumer choice and variety in the marketplace. Geico has captured that! If you don’t prefer the caveman commericals, then maybe you will like the gecko.. or you will get that stupid song stuck in your head with the money. However you slice it, they have done their job of making you remember the brand (regardless of whether or not you remember what they are selling).
I think they have done an outstanding job of communicating the message.
I actually am very supportive of the Geico Commercials.
Where I ended up at, is how you could convincingly display value in 30-90 seconds on the following 3 points: ease of use, low cost, reliable/trusted name? Furthermore, even if they did a campaign with a central theme and just covered each point in a different commercial I’m still not convinced it would come across.
In the end I think humor, breaking the value positioning up into 3 separate messages, and building 3 mascots underneath them was the most effective use of ad dollars. As you pointed out there is the side benefit of being able to hit an audience with any one of the 3 ads, in case they didn’t like the other two.
Hello from Russia!
Can I quote a post in your blog with the link to you?