‘It’s Not Surprising’ Featured by The Drum
By Kyle O'Brien
Geico hits the mark again with another spot from the Martin Agency, featuring a 'Casual Friday' beefeater at Buckingham Palace.
It’s the latest in the insurance company’s ‘It’s Not Surprising’ campaign, which has also included Ice T selling lemonade, an orchestral triangle solo and Tiki Barber running a barber shop.
‘Casual Friday’ finds a changing of the guard for the Yeomen Warders of Her Majesty's Royal Palace. While the outgoing guard is perfectly upright, stoic and on point, his replacement saunters in wearing the signature puffy hat, but also an unkempt bathrobe and tee shirt, plus flip flops and carrying a coffee drink and a bag of food as he sits in a folding chair on guard.
“Casual Fridays at Buckingham Palace? Surprising,” says the voice over. He goes on to say that it’s not surprising that people are saving money by switching to Geico.
"With a lot of Geico ads, we try to tap into human, relatable truths. Like say, butt-dialing or looking-busy-while-the-boss-walks-by from our 'It's What You Do' campaign," said Ken Marcus, senior copywriter with the Martin Agency. "Casual Fridays are pretty much a universal experience, so we tried to come up with a situation in which a Casual Friday would be unexpected and fun-to-play-with. Originally, we talked about 'Casual Fridays' at The Center For Disease Control. You know, all these folks are in hazmat suits and some guy in a bathrobe walks up, eating a donut. But ultimately, we felt like Buckingham Palace would be more visually interesting and well, surprising."
Marcus gives credit entirely to the team at Geico for the success of the campaign.
"They have this disciplined instinct to keep our messaging bone simple. In this case, demonstrating our savings claim with real customers. This allows us the time to let a joke breath and play out, versus cramming all of these RTBs into thirty seconds. Also, we try and mine our humor from everyday life. Versus just being weird for weird's sake. So hopefully, our material is always relatable and universal in appeal," he said.
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