Jacob Hobbs

English 112

Rhetorical Analysis of Advertising

December 8th, 2020

Insurance Assurance: 1980s-Present

Insurance is one of the most boring products on the market. This inherent nature of

insurance makes it difficult for companies to effectively market their coverage plans. However,

given that almost everybody owns some sort of insurance, it is an extremely profitable business.

This gives companies an enormous amount of resources to be able to advertise their products. In

the 1980s, commercials were mainly focused on selling the safety aspect of insurance. Gradually

over the past few decades, companies have changed the message of their ads from wholesome

and comforting to entertaining and memorable to combat the boring nature of insurance.

In this 1988 advertisement, Prudential Insurance focuses on the need to feel safe.

Throughout the ad, images of family scenes are shown to pander to parents and family members.

This, coupled with the emotional music playing while these images are shown, creates an

inspirational and warm atmosphere. The main slogan, “above and beyond,” is repeated in this
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song to demonstrate that Prudential will do more than what is required to make families feel safe

and secure. They use a “Prudential representative” to demonstrate this, showing that their

employees will come to their customer’s homes and do for them what they would want for their

own family. The ad was most likely effective in conveying its message at the time but would be

considered too down-to-earth and cheesy to many viewers today.

In this 1993 advertisement by MetLife insurance, Peppermint Patty is “zapped” by a

lightning strike while she is playing baseball. Snoopy, MetLife’s longtime mascot, appears from

home plate and hands Patty a life insurance check. This ad is an excellent representation of the

use of well-known pop culture characters in advertisements. The ad primarily uses Fowle’s need

to feel safe appeal, but also uses beloved characters to hone in on the audience’s need for

affiliation. At the end of the ad, the words “Get Met. It Pays” are displayed in large print letters.

By having a dichotomy between cartoon characters and a bright blue screen, MetLife is able to

grab the viewer’s attention in order to further their message that everybody, even Peanuts

characters, is covered by MetLife insurance.

The Geico Gecko has been an advertising icon since the early 2000s. In this 2000 ad, the

Gecko is talking to someone about changing his name because it is often confused with the

Geico insurance company. In a funny quip, he says that he would like his name changed to

“Komodo Dragon, please.” The object of the Geico Gecko advertisements is to entertain viewers

and distract them from the object of what Geico is trying to sell. By also personifying a gecko,

they utilize the viewer’s need to satisfy curiosity and continue watching. Around this time,

insurance companies were starting to air similar ads that seem counterintuitive to their goal.

However, by creating characters like the Geico Gecko, they were able to popularize their brand

to a much greater extent as opposed to more genuine, wholesome ads. However, ads around this

time still utilize repeated slogans that appear in many of their ads, such as “fifteen minutes can

save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.”

This famous State Farm ad is the crux of advertising in the 2010s era. Utilizing innuendo,

comedy, and drama, this ad strays far from the down-to-earth type of ad displayed in the

Prudential commercial. The premise of the ad is to make the viewer think that the husband is

cheating on his wife and talking to someone salaciously over the phone. When the wife takes the

phone, the husband insists that it is just “Jake, from State Farm.” The wife does not believe him,

or the obviously male insurance agent on the phone, a comedic moment in the ad. This ad begins

by utilizing the viewer’s need for sex but somehow is able to transition that into a need to feel

safe. Setting aside the impressively effective comedy that was able to make this commercial

famous, it cleverly links two completely unrelated appeals to humorously deliver what State

Farm is selling.

The last commercial by Progressive Insurance adapts to a common theme in 2020: video

conferencing. By ironically trying to talk about insurance and attempting to present a

time still utilize repeated slogans that appear in many of their ads, such as “fifteen minutes can

save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.”

This famous State Farm ad is the crux of advertising in the 2010s era. Utilizing innuendo,

comedy, and drama, this ad strays far from the down-to-earth type of ad displayed in the

Prudential commercial. The premise of the ad is to make the viewer think that the husband is

cheating on his wife and talking to someone salaciously over the phone. When the wife takes the

phone, the husband insists that it is just “Jake, from State Farm.” The wife does not believe him,

or the obviously male insurance agent on the phone, a comedic moment in the ad. This ad begins

by utilizing the viewer’s need for sex but somehow is able to transition that into a need to feel

safe. Setting aside the impressively effective comedy that was able to make this commercial
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famous, it cleverly links two completely unrelated appeals to humorously deliver what State

Farm is selling.

The last commercial by Progressive Insurance adapts to a common theme in 2020: video

conferencing. By ironically trying to talk about insurance and attempting to present a

problematic presentation, Progressive is able to get their point across while simultaneously

intentionally trying not to get their point across. This is a common theme in Progressive ads,

which typically also feature well-known characters like Flo and Jamie that have been featured

many times in the past decade. This ad utilizes the opposite of the need to aggress to relate to the

viewer and their inevitable video conferencing problems. This ad has no catharsis or resolution,

as the failure of these characters creates a comedic effect, entertaining their audience while

almost unintentionally selling insurance.

The insurance industry is a difficult one to advertise. In the earlier days of advertising,

companies wanted to appeal to the viewer’s emotions, primarily using pathos-driven arguments.

As these commercials and their market’s evolved, ethos became a much larger component in

insurance commercials. Celebrities, cartoon characters, and well-known figures were being used
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to convince the audience that a certain company was best for their interests. Companies created

poppy and personified characters as well in order to almost establish ethos between a well-

known character and their associated company. Logos is seldom used in most television

advertisements, as companies want to spend as much time as possible captivating their audience

to garner interest in their product, not spewing actual facts and data. In today’s competitive

advertising world, the use of Pathos with comedy is often the most effective when trying to sell

typically unexciting insurance products.