GEICO advertising campaigns

GEICO advertising campaigns are known for using surreal humor and satire, often featuring distinctive characters such as the company's mascot, Chris, otherwise known as the GEICO gecko. The advertising strategy incorporates a saturation-level amount of print (primarily mail circulars) and television parody advertisements, as well as radio advertisements. A common line used by GEICO is "15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance."

Investor Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of GEICO parent Berkshire Hathaway, has stated that he would spend $2 billion on GEICO ads if he could, approximately double the spending in 2012, which was $1.1 billion, over twice that of second place Progressive Corporation, with 6.8% of premiums going into commercials. GEICO is one of the most prolific advertisers in the United States, along with telephone companies AT&T and Verizon. However, this is offset by not paying agents commissions, since GEICO uses a direct to consumer model. This has resulted in GEICO being the second largest auto insurer in the United States (behind State Farm).

Many of the most prominent TV ad campaigns, such as the GEICO Gecko, the GEICO Cavemen, the Rhetorical Questions campaign featuring Mike McGlone, Maxwell the Pig, and the GEICO Hump Day Camel were developed by The Martin Agency.

Animated advertisements were part of the early GEICO Direct ads as well as the "Dumb Things" campaign. The 15-second long commercials, animated by Bill Plympton, featured a curious little man walking up to an object and eventually getting hurt due to his curiosity of the object. One of the commercials, for example, involved him finding a cannon and pressing a button, causing a resulting cannonball to fire out and stick to his face. The original saying in the commercial was "You could still save money on car insurance. Even if you made a few mistakes."; later modified to "We all do dumb things. Paying too much for car insurance doesn't have to be one of them."

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