Geico’s “The Money You Could be Saving” line of commercials are great marketing tools. They combine Geico’s flair for creepiness with the savvy gamble that people like money.

Geico’s next group of commercials use the formula of the “The Money You Could be Saving” commercials but take Geico’s advertising to, in my opinion, the next level.

Some History

Geico has struggled for years to find the perfect character that symbolized money. The Gecko was close. He was green like money and exotic like the idea of having a lot of money. The cavemen were better. They went to fancy parties, lived in expensive apartments, and were worth a lot of money if captured and sold into scientific slavery.

With the “The Money You Could be Saving” commercials, Geico finally realized that symbolism is a dead art, like Macrame or drawing Nintendo characters in Paint. The “money” in “The Money You Could be Saving” commercials is an actual stack of money instead of something like a T-Rex with diamonds for eyes. (His name could be “Ice-Rx” with the “Rx” standing for “prescription” and the “ice” standing for diamonds, so diamond prescription. And diamonds are worth a lot of money. So Geico has the prescription for money.  Awesome, right?    …Fuck you guys.  Geico, call me.)

For their next batch of advertising, Geico is taking literal to a whole new level with the “Money To Buy This Now” commercials. The idea behind these commercials is that no one puts saved money in the bank, instead they just immediately spend it on things like little Ed’s medicine or a replacement for the broken sex-swing.

Geico’s Next Set Of Commercials

These new commercials eliminate the popular stack of money with eyes and replace it with a popular consumer-good with eyes. The consumer-good used varies by state.  For example, in states like North Dakota and Colorado, the new “Money To Buy This Now” commercial starts with a husband and wife arguing in slurred voices about the wife passing out all afternoon instead of washing the husband’s dress tank tops. In shuffles Geico’s new mascot, Thirsty, a giant Feckin whiskey bottle featuring those two peering eyes. The husband and wife stop arguing, look at each other, and then rush to the phone to call Geico. The commercial ends with the wife, covered in blood, passing out in the pickup on the way to the liquor store.

The “Money To Buy This Now” commercial airing on the east coast features an average family sitting around the living room.  The kids are watching something on TV while the dad handles the bills at the kitchen table in the adjoining room. The youngest child, a girl, gets up from the couch and, dragging her teddy bear by his foot, walks into the kitchen to tug on her father’s pant leg. The man smiles, looks down, and asks what his sweet dear wants. The young child starts screaming for ice cream.

The little girl howls and kicks and yells. The dad tries to quiet her, but he can’t. He runs to the kitchen, tearing open the cabinets in a frantic search for something sweet to stuff in her mouth. There’s nothing. The house is barren of snack. He pulls out his wallet only to find it too empty. Just as he grabs a plastic bag off the counter and closes his eyes, in slides the new Geico mascot, Sweets, a huge dripping ice cream cone with two eyes pressed into the mass of melting vanilla. The young child stops crying immediately. The dad grabs the phone and calls Geico. In the last scene of the commercial, the relieved father is sitting at the table with his little girl, watching her take the last bite of her ice cream cone. She chews it up, swallows, and starts screaming for more ice cream.

Geico is also focus-testing several other new mascots and some of the results are surprising.  Sticky the giant syringe is obviously doing well in places like California, but is also scoring high in every rich, white community in the country. Shockingly, Plungy the giant lifelike dildo is receiving a lot of good feedback from the elderly population. When questioned about Plungy’s appeal, most seniors stated that they could easily relate to Plungy’s wrinkly texture.

This new marketing strategy is another radical step by Geico. I see it taking a proud place in a long line of sometimes confusing, sometimes unsettling, but always original advertising.