GEICO: Difference between revisions
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{{Splitsections|GEICO ad campaigns|date=August 2008}} |
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{{Infobox Company | |
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company_name = Government Employees Insurance Company<br><small>(doing business as GEICO)</small> | |
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company_logo = [[Image:GEICO.png|250px]] | |
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company_type = [[Subsidiary]] | |
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slogan = 1. "Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance."<br>2. "It's so easy a caveman could do it"<br>3. (Geico Motorcycle) One call could save you money on your motorcycle insurance too...let's ride.| |
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foundation = [[1936]], [[Fort Worth, TX]]| |
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location = [[Chevy Chase, Maryland]]| |
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key_people = Olza M. "Tony" Nicely, CEO & Chairman| |
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num_employees = 23,000| |
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industry = [[Insurance]]| |
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products = [[Auto insurance]]| |
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owner = [[Berkshire Hathaway]]| revenue = $9.212 billion [[USD]] ([[2004]])<ref>Revenue: premiums written (2004), from [http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000095012905002423/a06623e10vk.htm Berkshire Hathaway 10-K]</ref> | |
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homepage = [http://www.geico.com/ www.geico.com] |
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}} |
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[[Image:Geicoheadquarters.jpg|thumb|right|GEICO headquarters in Chevy Chase]] |
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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 2007, provided coverage for more than 10 million [[motor car]]s, [[trucks]] and other [[motor vehicles]] owned by more than 8 million [[insurance contract|policy]] holders. GEICO writes private passenger automobile insurance in the [[District of Columbia]] and in all [[U.S. states]] except [[Massachusetts]]. The company is notable for its television advertising, with several prominent campaigns running simultaneously in national markets. |
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==History== |
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GEICO was founded in 1936 by [[Leo Goodwin]] and his wife [[Lillian Goodwin]] to provide auto insurance directly to federal government employees and their families <ref>See [http://www.geico.com/about/background/geicoHistory.htm History page] on company website</ref>. GEICO's original business model was predicated on the assumption that federal employees as a group would constitute a less risky and more financially stable pool of insureds, as opposed to the general public. Despite the presence of the word "government" in its name, GEICO has always been a private [[corporation]] and ''not'' a [[government agency]]. |
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A dominant figure in GEICO’s history is David Lloyd Kreeger (1919-1990), who became president of the company in 1964 and helped to steer it into a major insurance enterprise.{{Fact|date=November 2008}} As noted in his New York Times obituary November 20, 1990, Kreeger was the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia. He was graduated with high honors from [[Rutgers University|Rutgers]] and from [[Harvard Law School]], where he was editor of the [[Harvard Law Review|Law Review]]. Kreeger joined the Department of Agriculture as a lawyer early in FDR’s presidency; he later worked in the Department of the Interior. He then worked for the Justice Department. In 1948, he formed a group of investors who bought into GEICO. He became senior vice president and general counsel of the company. |
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Six years after becoming president of GEICO in 1964, he was named chairman and chief executive officer. He retained those titles until he retired in 1974. He continued as chairman of the executive committee until 1979, when he was named honorary chairman. |
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An accomplished amateur violinist, Kreeger was internationally known as a collector of Impressionist and modern painting and sculpture. He was was president and chairman of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington for almost 20 years. Today, he is perhaps best known for the Kreeger Museum, a mansion on Foxhall Road in Washington, DC, in which he and his wife, Carmen, also a patron of the arts, lived since 1968. It was designed by the architect Philip Johnson as a showcase for the Kreeger collection. |
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Intriguingly, the GEICO web site avoids any mention of David Lloyd Kreeger (http://www.geico.com/about/corporate/history/). |
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In the 1970s, under Kreeger's leadership, GEICO began to insure the general public, after real-time access to computerized driving records became available throughout the United States. In 1996, GEICO became a wholly owned subsidiary of [[Berkshire Hathaway]]. |
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GEICO generally deals directly with [[consumer]]s via the [[telephone]] and the [[Internet]], freeing up capital that would otherwise be spent on employing insurance agents in the field. As a result, the company is now the largest direct writer of private auto insurance in the United States.<ref name=glance>[http://www.geico.com/about/background/geicoGlance.htm GEICO at a Glance] on company website</ref> Today, GEICO does market their products through a small number of field agents, most of whom are based near military bases<ref>[http://www.bamautoinsurance.com/geico.php Geico<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>; more recently, GEICO has begun opening offices in locations other than near military bases. These agents are known as GFRs (GEICO Field Representatives). |
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==Advertising Campaigns== |
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GEICO's advertising strategy incorporates a [[market saturation|saturation]]-level amount of print (primarily mail circulars) and television [[parody advertisement]]s, as well as radio advertisements. A common tagline used by GEICO is "fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance." |
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==Individual Ads== |
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Airing roughly in the same time period as the "Stupid Things" ads, GEICO presented a number of memorable one shot ads. A man whose insurance company didn't offer a loaner car left his house covered in magnets and "bummed a ride" by attaching himself to a passing car. A man's dog wears a metal heat protection suit as he delivers a competing insurance company's bill because its 'too hot to handle'. Another man's dog rolls on his back laughing hysterically as his owner reads his bill. As an example of other companies' lack of service, a man in a diner tells a waitress he didn't order mayo on his sandwich, at which point she scrapes it off the side of the table. To showcase GEICO's 24-hour service, GEICO employees are shown wearing hats with cups of coffee attached to them instead of beer, along with a comparison of a regular insurance's small coffee mug and GEICO's big coffee mug, which also describes the typical hours of service. A police unit tracks down an apparent earthquake, only to find the source is a man joyously jumping up and down over the money GEICO saved him. A man hires a team of bloodhounds to find his Acme Insurance agent after hours, only to find only a terrified janitor in the building. One of the most popular of these ads featured a man using the code name Bob Wehaddababyitsaboy to avoid having to pay long distance collect phone bills. This commercial ran for a few weeks with just the joke and the pitch for GEICO, and then another shot of the man on the telephone saying "Last name is Wehadababyitsaboyandweighs8pounds3ouncesandisdoingfine". The commercial was re-edited to remove the tag joke and add "Don't cheat the Phone Company, save money the legal way with GEICO" after the opening joke. |
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===The GEICO gecko === |
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[[Image:GEICO Insurance Gecko.JPG|thumb|right| 1999-2008 [[gecko]]]] |
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The company's ads sometimes focus on its reptilian [[mascot]], the GEICO [[gecko]], an [[anthropomorphic]] [[Day Gecko]] created by [[The Martin Agency]] and most recently a [[Computer-generated image|CGI]] creature generated by [[Framestore CFC]]. The gecko first appeared in 1999 during the [[Screen Actors Guild]] [[Strike action|strike]] that prevented the use of live actors.<ref name=geico_x/> 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 English ([[Cockney]]) accent, because it would be unexpected, according to Martin Agency's Steve Bassett. [[Jake Wood]], a British actor and comedian, is the current voice of the GEICO gecko. In current commercials the gecko's accent is more working-class, perhaps in an effort to further "humanize" him.<ref>"Little Lizard Says 'Ello To A New Inflection", [[The Hartford Courant]], 22 February 2006.</ref> "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."<ref name=geico_x>[http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/adtrack/2006-07-16-geico_x.htm Gecko wasn't first choice for Geico.] USA Today, [[July 16]] [[2006]]. Retrieved [[Feb 16]] [[2007]].</ref> A recent series of ads show a nature show host, clearly patterned on [[David Attenborough]], attempting to observe the gecko and obtain footage, but failing to do so. "'E's giving me the 'eebie-jeebies," the lizard confides. |
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===Parodies=== |
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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]], [[Mrs. Butterworth]], Jed Clampett, and Bill Dutchess as well as real people such as [[Tony Little]], [[Little Richard]], [[Joan Rivers]], [[Peter Frampton]], [[Don LaFontaine]], and [[James Lipton]] 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. Another set of GEICO ads involved a fictional reality show called "Tiny House" in which contestants were forced to live in a half-scale house. |
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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, a reality TV show, dolls, and even poking fun at the Old Navy commercials - 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. |
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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. |
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===="I've got good news"==== |
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In another ad campaign, a character would be breaking bad news to another (such as a [[baseball]] manager lifting a struggling pitcher for a reliever), 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!" That news, of course, is of no immediate use at all to the other character. 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. One of the most watched "I've got good news" spots was a [[soap opera]] parody featuring television actor [[Sebastian Siegel]]. |
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====Bland salesman==== |
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In another series, a GEICO pitchman is played by actor [[Jerry Lambert (actor)|Jerry Lambert]] in an extremely bland and understated way, parodying the stereotype of an insurance man, such as reading to some bored-looking kids, from a book of fairy tales about insurance. In one segment, he reads a supposed e-mail from a viewer saying it would be "the bomb", i.e. something good, if the Gecko would do a dance called "[[Robot (dance)|The Robot]]". Cut to the Gecko doing that dance smoothly and gracefully (to the tune of a not-for-public-sale melody called "Sweet World" by a group called "Comega Men"<ref>http://www.geico.com/fun/blog/blog19.htm</ref>, which was used in the arcade video game ''[[In the Groove 2]]'') and then back to the insurance salesman attempting to do the same dance, seemingly more stiffly than an actual robot would. |
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===Celebrities=== |
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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]], [[Burt Bacharach]], [[Little Richard]], [[Don LaFontaine]] ("that announcer guy from the movies"), [[Peter Graves (actor)|Peter Graves]], and [[Verne Troyer]]. [[D.C. Douglas]] was also featured.<ref>[http://advertising.about.com/od/commercialspotlight/p/spotlightgeico.htm Commercial Spotlight: Geico Featuring Celebrities<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> |
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Other recent ads have included [[James Lipton]], [[Police Academy]]'s [[Michael Winslow]] ("that guy who does those funny sound effects"), [[Peter Frampton]], [[Joan Rivers]], [[The Pips]], and [[Mrs. Butterworth's]] talking syrup bottle. |
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===Cavemen=== |
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{{main|GEICO Cavemen}} |
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A popular series of well-received advertisements uses cavemen as pitchmen. Also developed by the Martin Agency, the ads center on [[Neanderthal]]-like [[caveman|cavemen]], no different from modern-day individuals (outside of the somewhat pre-historic facial features), encountering either an ad or commercial with the tagline "GEICO: so easy a caveman could do it," followed by their disgust with the supposed stereotype of caveman stupidity. The ads posit a world where cavemen are still alive and active members of society in the present day, behaving and living nothing at all like the stereotypical caveman. The main characters presented in the ads are affluent, educated, and cultured, eating at fancy restaurants, going to exclusive parties, and seeing their therapists (portrayed in the commercials by two-time [[Academy Award|Oscar]]-nominated actress [[Talia Shire]]). The humor revolves around the relative normality of the cavemen's presence and their reactions to the stereotype represented in the ads, and their attempts at defending themselves from the stereotype. |
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The ads were so successful that the commercial actors are appearing in a successful series of interactive websites written and produced by GEICO's in-house creative team at [http://www.cavemanscrib.com Caveman's Crib]and most recently, [http://www.iheartcavemen.com iHeartcavemen]. A spin off TV series, titled ''[[Cavemen (TV series)|Cavemen]]'' and starring new actors, debuted on [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] in October 2007<ref>[http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117960384.html?categoryid=1300&cs=1 ABC developing 'Cavemen' - Entertainment News, Pilot Watch, Media - Variety<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> <!-- For sources, see separate article: [[GEICO Cavemen]] --> <!-- Why not include at least some sources here? That seems reasonable. --> to overwhelmingly negative critical reaction. |
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===My Great Rides=== |
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In 2007, GEICO also launched a social networking site, [http://www.mygreatrides.com 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. |
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===GEICO Racing=== |
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The number 7 car of the [[NASCAR]] [[Nationwide Series]] is driven by [[Mike Wallace (NASCAR)|Mike Wallace]] and is sponsored by GEICO. Commercials involving the race team are of a memorably disdainful young boy, played by actor [[Eddie Heffernan]] claiming to be a relative of Mike Wallace and being a better driver. The boy says, "When people see [[Mike Wallace (NASCAR)|Mike Wallace]] and the Geico number 7 doing well, they'll think of saving a bunch of money on car insurance. But when they see me, they'll say, 'There goes Lauren Wallace;<ref>http://www.geicoracing7.com/photos.html Geico Racing</ref> the greatest thing to ever climb into a racecar.'" |
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The commercials are sometimes presented in an interview fashion, where an unseen narrator speaks to the ambitious [[go-kart]] driver. "What do you think of Mike Wallace?" the child is asked, to which he responds, "Whatever, he's out there selling car insurance, I'm out there to win." When questioned on his relation to the [[NASCAR]] driver, Lauren shakes his head and concludes, "I didn't say I wouldn't go [[fishing]] with the man, all I'm saying is if he comes near me, I'll put him in the wall." To which the narrator questions him, "You don't race in the [[Busch Series]]." Lauren replies "Listen, [[go-kart]] track, [[grocery store]], those [[Wikipedia:Radio-controlled boat|remote controlled boats]]; when it comes to [[Mike Wallace (NASCAR)|Mike Wallace]] the story ends with me putting him in the wall." |
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New ads in this lineup include Lauren referring to himself as being, "100 miles away and ready to strike," and "lightning in a bottle." |
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The success of those ads resulted in the launch of an interactive website written and produced by GEICO's in-house creative team at [http://www.geicogarage.com GEICO Garage]. The site includes cameo appearances by Lauren Wallace and drivers Mike Wallace, his daughter Chrissy Wallace, Speed TV's Tommy Kendall, Paul Tracy, Christian Fittipaldi and Max Papis. |
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===15 Minutes Online=== |
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===TRS: The Real Scoop=== |
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Introduced in September, 2007, this series of ads features an ''[[E! True Hollywood Story]]''-type show about famed fictional characters such as [[Fred Flintstone]], [[Jed Clampett]], and even a [[Cabbage Patch Kids|Cabbage Patch Kid]] named Ben Winkler claiming to have their cars (the Flintmobile, Jed's 1923 [[Oldsmobile]] truck, and a [[Plymouth Reliant]], respectively) insured by GEICO, featuring interviews with made-up investigators (however, the Ben Winkler spot does not have an interview). These commercials were voiced over by narrator David O'Brien. |
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==Competition== |
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GEICO's major competitors include [[State Farm Insurance|State Farm]], [[Allstate]], [[Progressive Corporation|Progressive]], [[Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company|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. |
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==See also== |
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* [[List of United States insurance companies]] |
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==References== |
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{{reflist}} |
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==External links== |
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*[http://www.geico.com/ GEICO] official website |
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{{Berkshire Hathaway}} |
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[[Category:Insurance companies of the United States]] |
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[[Category:Berkshire Hathaway]] |
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[[Category:Companies based in Maryland]] |
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[[Category:Advertising campaigns]] |
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[[Category:Fictional chameleons and geckos]] |
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[[Category:Montgomery County, Maryland]] |
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[[Category:Companies based in Fort Worth, Texas]] |
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[[de:Geico]] |
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[[fa:گایکو]] |
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