GEICO

Government Employees Insurance Company
(also known as GEICO)

GEICO Logo, featuring the GEICO Gecko
Company type	Subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway
Industry	Finance and Insurance
Founded	1936, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Headquarters	Chevy Chase, Maryland
Key people	Olza M. "Tony" Nicely, CEO & Chairman
Products	Auto insurance
Revenue	$9.212 billion USD (2004)
Number of employees	22,000
Website	www.geico.com

The Government Employees Insurance Company, usually known by the acronym GEICO, is an American auto insurance company. GEICO is a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway and, as of 2006, provided coverage for more than 10 million motor cars, trucks and other motor vehicles owned by more than 7 million policy holders. GEICO writes private passenger automobile insurance in the District of Columbia and in all U.S. states except Massachusetts.

History

GEICO was founded by Leo Goodwin and his wife Lillian Goodwin in 1936 to market auto insurance directly to federal government employees and their families. Goodwin was inducted into the Insurance Hall of Fame due to the success of the company. GEICO's business model was based on the assumption that such persons would constitute a more financially stable and less risky pool of potential insureds than the general public. After real-time access to computerized driving records became available in the 1970s throughout the United States, GEICO began to insure the general public in addition to its target demographics.

GEICO generally deals directly with consumers via the telephone and the Internet, freeing up capital that would otherwise be spent on employing insurance agents in the field and making the company the nation's largest direct writer of private auto insurance. GEICO does, however, market their products through a small number of field agents, most of whom are based near military bases. Although, in recent years, GEICO is now opening offices in locations other than near military bases. These agents are known as GFRs (GEICO Field Representatives).

Commercials

GEICO's advertising strategy incorporates a saturation-level amount of print (primarily mail circulars) and television parody advertisements, as well as radio advertisements. A common tagline used by GEICO is "fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance."

Stupid things

Early GEICO ads were animated and showed someone doing something stupid, such as pressing a button causing a cannon to fire at them. A voice over would then say "We all do stupid things. Paying too much for car insurance shouldn't be one of them." These were very short and were generally aired with two back-to-back.

The GEICO gecko

File:GEICO Insurance Gecko.JPG

GEICO's computer animated gecko.

The company's ads sometimes focus on its reptilian mascot, the GEICO talking gecko, created by The Martin Agency and most recently a CGI creature generated by Framestore CFC. The gecko first appeared in 1999 during the Screen Actors Guild strike that prevented the use of live actors. In the original commercial, where the gecko pleads for people to stop calling him in error, mistaking gecko for geico, he was voiced by Kelsey Grammer. In the subsequent commercials, the gecko speaks with an australian accent because it would be unexpected, according to Martin Agency's Steve Bassett. In current commercials the gecko's accent is more working-class (a typical Lombardo accent), perhaps in an effort to further "humanize" him. "As computer animation got better and as we got to know the character better, we did a few things," says Steve Bassett, creative director at The Martin Agency. "We wanted to make him a little more guy-next-door. And he looks a lot more real than he's looked before."

Parodies

Another common theme is misdirection, in which the commercial appears to be about an unrelated product (or, in fact, may not even be a commercial) and suddenly changes to become a plug for GEICO. The commercials use a variety of fictional characters such as Speed Racer and Bill Dutchess as well as real people such as Tony Little spoofing themselves. Other commercials relate to a hair loss doctor who has saved by switching to GEICO, a nature show about a fish, and a soap opera of a couple who are breaking up.

An additional commercial theme is the promotion of fictional products. In 2006 parody ads featured such products as long distance phone service, tomato soda, fast-food, and a reality TV show - in all cases, the parody portion of the ad ends with "but it won't save you any money on car insurance." After the GEICO slogan is heard, the commercials end with "Why haven't you called GEICO?" This use of fictional products in commercials is reminiscent of the Energizer Bunny campaign for batteries from the late '80s.

The parody pitch crossed over to the Caveman campaign (see below) in a recent 10 second spot that appears to be a talking heads news interview, but features the popular caveman.

Good News

In another ad campaign, a character would be breaking bad news to another, but then offer helpfully, "I've got good news," and explain, "I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to GEICO!" Some of the ads were parodies and/or featured celebrities, including, for example, Esteban. The exchange became parodied for a time while the ads were popular.

Celebrities

There are also GEICO ads that feature stories from GEICO customers about situations in which Geico assisted them, but narrated by celebrities such as Charo, Charlton Heston, Burt Bacharach, Little Richard, Don LaFontaine, Peter Graves, and Verne Troyer. D.C. Douglas provides the voiceover.

Cavemen

In 2005, GEICO began an advertising campaign featuring Neanderthal cavemen in a modern setting. Also developed by the Martin Agency, in these commercials a GEICO spokesman explains that using geico.com is "so easy a caveman could do it." This slogan offends cavemen who are shown to still exist in modern society and, in fact, are quite urbane. A follow-up commercial was aired later, in which the spokesman attempts to apologize to two cavemen in a restaurant. In 2006, a new commercial featuring the cavemen premiered. With the Royksopp song "Remind Me" playing in the background, a caveman is on a moving sidewalk at an airport when he spots a billboard for Geico featuring a picture of a caveman along with the insulting phrase; the passing caveman tries to use his celebrity status to atract a passing woman. Another variation of the commercial shows the same caveman talking to an unnamed person on a cellphone about the billboard, describing it to the person in a seemingly displeased manner. This particular commercial is a parody of the opening scene of The Graduate, where Benjamin Braddock (played by Dustin Hoffman) pensively rides the moving sidewalk in the same lethargic manner. A college campaign shows the offending ad with a sticker superimposed on top of it; the sticker has a photograph of the caveman on it and says "Cavemen are people too." Jeff Daniel Phillips and Ben Weber played the two earliest cavemen and continuously reprise their roles. Actor John Lehr appears most frequently as the caveman. Another set of commercials features one of the cavemen seeing a therapist about the "offensive" Geico commercials. (The therapist is played by two-time Oscar-nominee Talia Shire.)

In 2007, GEICO's internal Communications and Marketing departments created and launched an interactive flash website entitled Caveman's Crib. Picking up where the commercials left off, this comic website invites users to a penthouse party at one of the cavemen's apartment. The party is not yet underway, and the caveman is none too pleased with the early arrival. Users may interact with the GEICO cavemen, snoop around their apartment, read their magazines, pick out clothing for them to wear, and even peek in on one of them in the steamy shower. References to the cavemen's occasionally antagonistic relationship with GEICO are hidden throughout the "crib."

Additionally, users can visit a start-up website supposedly run by the caveman, UpwithCavemen.com where cavemen urge support in their crusade against prejudice. The website features "testimonials" from high-achieving cavemen. The upwithcavemen.com site is owned by GEICO. This can be confirmed by performing a "whois" domain name search.

On March 2, 2007, Variety reported that a sitcom based on the cavemen characters, simply titled Cavemen, is being developed for ABC.

My Great Rides

In 2007, GEICO also launched a social networking site, My Great Rides, for motorcycle owners. My Great Rides is a place for cycle owners to share stories about trips they have taken on their bikes, as well as post pictures of their motorcycles, and comment on other members stories and pictures.

Competition

GEICO's major competitors include State Farm, Allstate, Progressive, Eastwood Insurance, Nationwide and USAA. Progressive is particularly countered in their commercials, with many GEICO commercials countering Progressive's claims of being able to quote their rates and those of several of their competitors' rates by stating that GEICO quotes are only available at GEICO.com.

External links

• GEICO official website
• Caveman's Crib
• My Great Rides-Social Site for Motorcycle Owners
• Slate.com article "The Best Ad On Television"
• Geico Gecko Ads reviewed
• Geico Celebrity Ads reviewed
• Geico Caveman Ads reviewed
• Jeffrey Daniel Phillips at IMDb Trivia - Portrays one of the Cavemen in the Geico Insurance Commercials
• Ben Weber at IMDb Trivia - Portrays one of the "Cavemen" in the Geico Insurance Commercials