- July 9, 2021
- Posted by: Stratford Team
- Category: Business
Despite their mundane product, insurance commercials have become one of the wackiest parts of almost any TV ad break. Phoenix Suns star Chris Paul turns into a basketball for State Farm, cave men hawk Geico, and Progressive’s (PGR) long-running character Flo does absolutely nothing.
The sector’s unlikely penchant for jokes owes in large part to the Aflac (AFL) duck, which made its debut more than 21 years ago and almost immediately transformed the fortunes of the company. But the ad campaign almost never happened.
Aflac CEO Dan Amos tells Yahoo Finance in a recent interview that he was “very reluctant” to go forward with the ad because it risked making light of the company’s name. But the ad made Aflac a household name, exploded sales, and was soon released by the company’s Japan operation to similar effect, he said.
“The advertising agency that we had was sitting on a park bench in New York City, and heard the ducks quacking, and one of them said, ‘That…
