GEICO Commercial Analysis
Justice Waite Professor Cherry Eng 111 Analysis Final Draft Can squirrels really plot? Have you ever been driving down the road and have something bad happen to you that you have to slam on the breaks? If you have, then maybe you can relate to the following commercial. Even if you have never had this happen to you, you still might be able to relate to it. The basic idea of the commercial is that no matter what happens in life, that you should always be prepared for what to do next. GEICO is not just car insurance, but they can be your friend.
First of all I would like to start of this essay by telling you what my commercial is about. The commercial that I chose to write my paper on was a GEICO commercial. There are lots of commercials out there for car insurance, but I think this one is the best. When we first see this commercial on the television, they start it off by showing you a squirrel sitting on a tree stump. This stump is by the side of the road near the woods. The squirrel is also eating a nut, while we hear the birds chirping. About half way into the commercial, the squirrel jumps down from the stump and tries to cross the road.
As the squirrel crosses the road, he sees a station wagon coming down the road. He than stops in front of the car and just stands there and waits for the car to hit him. Instead of the car hitting him, it swerves off the side of the road. As we hear crashing sounds from the car, another squirrel comes onto the road next to the other squirrel. As the car is crashing the two squirrels start pounding their fists together as if he made the car crash on purpose. Then the narrator says “Accidents can happen anytime. That’s why GEICO is here 24 hours a day, every day. By looking closer at what this commercial is really saying, then we can understand it better. Because this commercial was on the USA channel, during the new episode of White Collar it can help us better to figure out who GEICO is really trying to target with it. Seeing as how all Americans watch the USA channel, it is best to assume that GEICO is trying to target people in their late twenties and above. We can assume this because a majority of American families watch this channel. By looking closer at what this commercial is really saying than we can understand it better.
Because this commercial was on the USA channel, during the new episode of White Collar it can help us. By putting this commercial on during a well watched television series is a great way to promote a product. This commercial is also very funny to some people. By making it this way, GEICO hopes to attract people with great personalities, and that are rather funny to be around. Comedy is always a great way to promote a product. Because GEICO references that these two squirrels are buddies, they make this commercial very entertaining to watch.
Everyone knows that squirrels run across the road into traffic all the time, that is why this commercial is so great to watch. GEICO makes it seem like all that squirrels do all day is plot how to get cars into accidents. Even though what they really do is try to gather nuts all summer for winter time. Then GEICO makes it seem like once they actually achieve this scheme of making the cars go off the road, that they are happy and pound it with each other. This makes it fell like when two young kids are playing together.
If they are both boys, then we can definitely assume that they are up to no good and trying to plot to do something very bad. When they achieve what they are up to, then they both are happy and pound each others fists. Even though we all know that squirrels cant really plot with each other, the idea of it just makes it simply funny and easier to sell car insurance. I’ve already told you what I think this essay is about, and who the targeted audience is, so now it’s time to talk about the overall idea of this commercial.
In my opinion the overall idea of this commercial is that, no matter where you are or what happens, you should always be prepared for the unexpected. You could be driving down the road just like the guy was in this commercial, and have the same thing happen to you. If you are not prepared though, something bad could very well happen to you. Like going off the side of the road (in this guys case) and crashing your car. If you don’t have car insurance in this case, then you are going to be screwed.
Or take for example something else like, you are on your way home for work after a long night and your house is on fire. What do you do in this case? You can’t run inside of this flaming building and expect to get all of your things back. That is why you need to always be prepared and ready in case anything like this would ever happen, like having home owners insurance. Not everything though in life is always about insurance. It is just better to prepared for the unexpected than be screwed when it happens.
In conclusion, car insurance is not just another thing that you need to buy just because it is the law. Car insurance can be helpful in the most unexpected situation that will ever happen. GEICO tries to tell us this by basically using a metaphor. That they can be your friend when you need them the most. Just like a real life friend, but they use squirrels and a station wagon to get this point across. I hope by the time that you read this last sentence that you will understand this commercial better now. The way that I do, maybe you might even laugh a little bit like I did.
