Tow #10 - Geico Advertisement

Geico utilizes more characters at one time than probably any other commercial company in the history of business marketing. If one turns on the Television tonight one could see an ad starring their Gecko, Cavemen, or the pile of cash. Or maybe all three, to effectively captivate the audience into hearing them talk about their product.

The gecko first appeared in 1999 during a Screen Actors Guild strike that made the use of live actors impossible. In the gecko’s first TV add, he pleads for people confusing him, the gecko, with “GEICO” to stop phoning him. The gecko speaks with an English accent, because it would be unexpected, which draws the audience of the comercials in, and makes them interested in their product.

These modern cavemen have somehow escaped death, and avoided extinction while developing a fine taste for tennis, plasma TVs, and other modern things foods and activities. They are insulted by GEICO’s ad tagline, “So easy, a caveman can do it.” This technique adds satire to the advertisement. Reversal is used, and Geico shows a scene of cavemen doing normal things to draw attention to their adds.

Starting in 2008, GEICO has aired a series of TV ads featuring two paper-banded stacks of U.S. bills with a pair of big, buggy eyes on top. The pile of Cash, who never says anything, just sits and stares at people set to an obnoxious remix of a Rockwell/Michael Jackson song, “Somebody’s Watching Me.” This is a joke, that involves a literal stack of money watching a customer of another insurance agency. This, just like the gecko joke, is unexpected, and draws in the audience attention.

An actor asks the familiar question, “Could switching to Geico save you 15% or more on car insurance?” He then follows up with a rhetorical question: “Does Charlie Daniels play a mean fiddle?” or “Did The Waltons take way too long to say goodnight?” The use of rhetorical questions draws the audience in, while other boring ads makes their audience tune out.