In an article featured in TV Week, Adam Armbuster examines the advertising campaign of auto-insurer Geico, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. He interviews Ted Ward, the vice president of marketing at Geico, as well as Steve Bassett, the creative director at the Martin Agency, the small firm behind the Geico advertisements. Geico airs simultaneous and differing television campaigns, targeting their message to varied potential customer segments, hoping these campaigns will concurrently drive sales. Armbuster asks Bassett and Ward about the creative ideas behind the Cavemen, the gecko, and the celebrity spokesperson ads, which are the three major campaigns currently aired, and the reason for airing all three. Bassett says, “the Cavemen idea started with a simple laser-focused creative strategy to tell people that Geico.com is easy to use…Cavemen are historically dumb.” This lead to the coining of “so easy a caveman can do it.” Bassett said the gecko and the testimonials were inspired by the customers. The gecko was originally designed as a one-time commercial to help people pronounce Geico correctly, but developed an extremely loyal following and therefore became the face of the insurer. The celebrity appearances are fresh and engaging ways to produce one of the oldest advertising tools; testimonials. Ted Ward adds that the use of the three commercials help to reach a broad demographic of customers. Since car insurance is something that is needed by everyone who drives a car, whether age 16 or 60, Geico is trying to reach everyone with their diverse ads.
Ward goes on to further discuss the effect of the campaigns on the growth of the company. He says that Geico has nearly quadrupled in size from 1998, going from $3 bill ...