Bus312 Allstate Case Study (marketing)

Bus. 312. Allstate: Bringing Mayhem to the auto insurance advertising wars. Due April 4, 2017

Team 5. Garrett O’Connor, Tiffany Winters, Westin Millard, Jeff Kim, Julian Garcia.

Through their clever “Mayhem” advertising campaign, Allstate has put a contemporary, attention-grabbing twist on the company’s long standing slogan, “You’re in good hands with Allstate”, helping to position the brand as a superior alternative to price-oriented competitors. Mayhem doesn’t just describe the Allstate campaign, it characterizes the entire world of auto insurance advertising over the past decade. Not long ago, big auto insurance companies spent modestly on sleepy ad campaigns featuring reassuring messages such as Allstate’s “You’re in good hands,” or State Farm’s “like a good neighbor.” However, the serenity ended with the first appearance of the iconic Geico Gecko in 2000, being backed by a big budget and pitching direct sales and low prices. Other competitors quickly followed this immediate surge in competition, while Allstate struggled just to hold its own, let alone to grow as a company. In 2010 Allstate promoted a new advertising campaign called “Mayhem.” The new Mayhem campaign quickly won many top advertising industry awards, but it has also become ingrained in pop culture and social media channels. At the end of each ad, Mayhem warns, “If you’ve got cut rate insurance, you could be paying for this yourself.” Then a reassuring spokesman provides the solution: “Are you in good hands?” he asks. “Get Allstate. You can save money and be better protected from Mayhem.” This “worth- paying-a-little-more” message puts Allstate back at the top in terms of customer value.

Allstate did not have a consistent advertising slogan until 1950. Then everything turned around for them with the, “your in good hand's” slogan. This nurturing and comforting slogan withstood the test of time to become advertising longest running slogan because of the phrases of the slogan which projected security, reassurance, and responsibility, characteristics which the team wanted customers to associate with hence such traits made the customer feel secure hence their brand loyalty and association to the slogan. To this day, the “Mayhem” commercials that Allstate produced a couple of years ago remain among my personal favorite advertising campaigns ever. They’re quotable and fun, even for someone like me who has no intention whatsoever of switching from State Farm. Mayhem's Facebook page, which is operated by the insurance company, regularly posts updates and draws participation from fans illustrating how powerful brand loyalty can really be. The Mayhem ads were launched in 2010 and starred a Dean Winters as the physical embodiment of anything that could be used to make bad things happen to unsuspecting people. He might be a teenage girl texting while driving or a Christmas tree that wasn’t properly tied to the roof of a car. As Lisa Cochrane, Allstate’s senior vice president of marketing and the creator of the campaign, stated, “Mayhem doesn’t intend to do harm. Mayhem is just random stuff that happens—teen driver, a puppy in the backseat, a random windstorm” (Burns, 2014). Mayhem also highlighted the need for those potential customers to have insurance that covers life’s unexpected curveballs. If those customers decide to stick with “cut rate” insurance, (a term that is included in every single Mayhem ad) then they could be on the hook for costs that might have been covered by Allstate.