No matter how boring you think insurance is, you have to admit that ad agencies have had some genius ideas in marketing it. Insurance advertisements are right up there with beer commercials in the cleverness department. We represent some of these clever companies, like Allstate (just read this blog in a voice like Dennis Haysbert’s and it will automatically sound cool) and Progressive (who doesn’t love Flo’s zest for life?) And we concede to the humor in some of those OTHER companies’ commercials, too. However, I (Hollie) really did just save almost $400 on my car insurance with F.A. Peabody, from a decidedly non-lizardlike agent. My bet is that if I sang out her name in a little jingle, she’d show up even faster than a good neighbor.
We think Allstate’s Mayhem character is brilliant, if a little creepy. He helped inspire us to adopt our own character in Frankie Allen. We may not have an Allstate kind of budget, and we are definitely serious about insurance, but we do have a little fun with our number one fan. Frankie is much too nice to be compared in any real way to Mayhem, but he is smart enough to know that things happen and you shouldn’t wait until you say, “Uh oh, shoulda called FAPCO.”