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Posted Under: Advertising
I’m running behind on everything, so by now you’ve likely heard that the cavemen in the Geico ads might be getting their own sitcom. (If you haven’t heard, the WSJ had a good basic story about it.)
Personally, I take it as a given that — for better or worse — advertising and marketing can be evaluated like any other form of culture, just like a movie, a book, or a sitcom. And that’s why my reaction to this scheme is: Why would they want to take a step backwards, from a powerful and pervasive form like advertising, to something as boring and formulaic as a sitcom?
I’m not saying the caveman ads are on the level of a great novel or film or whatever, but they are compellingly strange, and as the series has continued, it’s become interesting to try to figure out what, exactly, they’re getting at. Are they poking fun at political correctness? Inviting us to consider unintended bigotry? Trying to connect with us as people who feel vaguely alienated and misunderstood by the modern world?
One reason the ads are open to interpretation, and thus somewhat engaginig (to me), is precisely the fact that they’re ads. They’re short, come out of nowhere, are nothing like the ads around them; the “story” advances only unexpectedly. (A new caveman ad!, etc.) Then repeats itself. We never really know the cavemen, we get only glimpses. There’s no exposition or explanation. There just happen to be these cavemen, and they’re tired of being discriminated against, and that’s it. None of it ever makes sense in any linear way.
Much of this goes away if you turn the cavemen into characters on a sitcom. We have to learn about their backgrounds, there have to be highly structured plots, filled with gags and laugh lines at predictable intervals. What’s good about that? If I’d created those cavemen, the last thing I’d want to see them reduced to is the low insult of a laugh track.
(Oh, and for the record: Do the ads do a “good job” selling Geico the brand? I don’t know, and don’t care.)
[Big thanks to B.A.]
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Reader Comments
Interesting post, and great blog. I would bet that the sitcoms are happening because Geico probably wants to cement themselves into popular culture, and our minds as consumers even further than they can through “traditional” advertising. In my mind, within the ad industry, “branded content” – like long-format video and television shows, rather than 30-second commercials – is the new aspiration for brands, because there’s a belief that it allows consumers to engage with the brand on a deeper level.
Well, my point is that the cavemen are already part of popular culture, precisely by way of traditional advertising.
But your point of view is the predominant one in the advertising industry. In fact, it’s the conventional wisdom in that business. But I’m not in that business, so I tend to look at things somewhat differently than the pros do.
In other words: What do I know?
i love those ads. since i moved into a new apartment, though, i no longer have television — or only television for dvd use. but when i used to have it, i thought those were very creative ads–the earnestness overshadowed but also balanced the absurdity-they’re cavemen but they’re just like you and me. and honestly, the ads work as far as name recongition goes because they bestow on geico a kind of hipness; whether that translates to getting your muffler fixed by them (that’s what they do, right?) is another story and if you don’t have a car, well an irrelevant one. then it’s pure entertainment.
Does WSJ article explain who owns what rights to the Cavemen? If so, I need to read. For instance, how far can current writers or most likely NEW writers go in terms of getting away from Geico – I can see the first review already: “sure they’re funny at times, but pitching for Geico non-stop gets old after ten minutes and it ruins the flow of the show….” (Then again, I’d like to see them turn to camera and say “Geico” every ten minutes which would then be followed by a laugh track.)
In the Mother Of All Ad Created Entertainment Battles – who wins: The Cavemen or BK’s The King? Is it wrong to wonder if there will be a Pay Per View special?