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Wednesday, March 3, 2010

10 Top GEICO TV Commercials: Gecko, Cavemen, and Beyond

  • A review of our favorite Geico commercials courtesy of Miami Ad School. Videos included at the site. 

    tags: ads, GEICO

    • If the phrase “an embarrassment of riches” can be applied to any advertising campaign, it can certainly be applied to the long running series of GEICO TV commercials. In the past 15 years, GEICO has made the pedestrian line “Fifteen minutes could save you 15 percent or more on car insurance” memorable through a shrewd combination of good, old-fashioned sheer repetition and one of the most prolific and varied advertising efforts in living memory. They’ve made advertising icons out of a Gecko and modern-day, still-living-among-us Cavemen, along with a veritable cavalcade of odd characters, near-celebrities, and even other consumer products.

      Here’s a brief sampling of some of the best GEICO TV work of the past decade, and then some. This is a completely unscientific sampling. And no googly-eyed “Kash” spots either. Just sit back and enjoy.

      1. Self-Licking Dog
      This is the proverbial “oldie but goodie.” Just the right amount of “eww” and a harbinger of things to come.

      2. Squirrel Hi-Five
      We always knew there was a great squirrel conspiracy. We just had no idea it went this far.

      3. Mrs. Butterworth
      “Someone’s placed a logo right over my face!” Simply classic.

      4. The First Gecko Spot
      If not for the Screen Actors Guild strike of 1999, we may have never seen the birth of this endearing character voiced here by none other than Kelsey Grammer.

      5. Airport Caveman
      To this day, perhaps the most enduring spot of the Caveman series. Sold lots of singles for the band Röyksopp, too.

      6. Into the wall
      "Listen, go-kart track, grocery store, those remote-controlled boats; when it comes to Mike Wallace, the story ends with me putting him in the wall."

      7. Butta and Jam
      It was this one or “Free Pie and Chips.” In the end, the Gecko’s “That’s a complete dramatization, of course, but you get my point,” puts this one over the top.

      8. Caveman Therapy One
      Talia Shire! Brilliant casting, and who doesn’t love “My mother’s calling; I’ll put it on speaker”?

      9. Trust Exercise
      Two words: “Oh, dear.”

      10. Charlie Daniels
      Best of the new Robert Stack “Unsolved Mysteries” Parodies. “That’s how you do it, son.”

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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