"Its so easy a caveman could do it."
That is the slogan of the popular series of commercials by Geico that first aired in 2004 and continues to air to this day. The Geico cavemen have appeared in 19 commercials that have run throughout the United States. The cavemen in each commercial are angry that Geico is degrading them in these advertisements.
These commercials have absolutely nothing to do with the car insurance company, Geico but they are funny and that is one of the critereum for a good commercial in today's market. When I read The Brand Expands by Natalie Klein these commercials came to mind. The acclaim of these commercials was so great that a television series, that lasted very shortly, was created. Klein in her essay worries that branding and advertising will become a dominant part of our culture. Ratings for the showed tanked and this proves that we are not quite to the culture where the brand is a star, but the very fact that it was able to become a television series proves that we are on our way.
2 comments:
It is very true that the Geico commercials that we see have absolutly nothing to do with the car insurance company. What it does is use the cavemen to catch our attention, to make us want to look and listen to whats going on. And thats exactly what all commercials want to do, catch your eye, by either using vibrant colors, interesting characters, attractive people, and loud obnoxious sounds and voices. For instance the commercial for Oxyclean they use a man with an enormous, obnoxious voice that basically yells and yells and yells at you until you get the word OXYCLEAN in your head. They want you to remember their commercials, and thats why they spends thousands and millions and billions of dollars on commercials- to sell their brand to you, to make you want to want it, to make you have to NEED it.
I agree that the caveman Geico commercials have absolutly nothing to do with the actual company. They are just meant to be funny and get peoples attention. Like Luciana said, the Oxyclean commercial is very memorable because of the crazy guy yelling the whole time about how great it is. It got my attention and so does the Geico commercials (even though sometimes they just aren't funny at all).
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