GEICO Sequels
Project Type
National Digital Contest
My Role
Project lead, UI/UX & Visual design
Responsibilities
Research, Brainstorms, design, schedule, client & leadership meetings
Tools
Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, InVision Studio
The Backstory
The ‘GEICO Sequels: The Return of Savings’ was a highly successful campaign that ran in 2020 as part of the GEICO Sequels series. It introduced a fresh set of commercials and online ads inspired by popular movie and TV show sequels. The campaign featured six captivating commercials, each focusing on beloved characters such as Pinocchio, Raccoons, and Woodchucks. To further engage the audience, a contest was launched alongside the commercials to sustain the campaign’s momentum.
The tagline ‘Return of Savings’ effectively conveyed GEICO’s commitment to providing affordable insurance options to its customers. Once again, The Martin Agency was responsible for creating this campaign, which aimed to build upon the triumph of the previous GEICO Sequels campaign.
The Challenge
Along with the new individual commercials of the characters, one main commercial was created to tie the concept together. It was a high-energy, fast-action thriller that played off many action movies with that well-known Geico humor.
Our team was entrusted with the creation of a dynamic microsite designed to ignite excitement and inspire user interaction. Given the challenge to match or exceed the success of the previous campaign, ‘The Best of Geico,’ we dedicated ourselves to crafting a campaign that would leave a lasting impression.
Seamlessly integrating the contest, social media components, voting mechanisms, and enticing prizes, we needed to orchestrate a sleek and cohesive campaign. Traditionally, such endeavors were outsourced, but our team’s exceptional track record on previous projects earned us the opportunity to handle this task in-house.
The resulting campaign showcases our creative problem-solving abilities, attention to detail, and knack for delivering extraordinary designs that resonate with audiences. It was an honor to contribute to the triumph of the GEICO Sequels campaign and demonstrate our design expertise.
The Solution
We initiated our design solution by conducting thorough research to determine the optimal approach for implementing the contest and its various components. Our research led us to the conclusion that assigning a team concept to each character would enhance engagement with the audience. To foster a sense of teamwork among users, we deemed it crucial to create custom assets for each character. Collaborating with my team and management, we fine-tuned the concept through iterative iterations, preparing us for the subsequent development phase.
We commenced the ideation process by sketching out different approaches to implementing our concepts. After several productive meetings, we consolidated our best ideas and seamlessly integrated them to deliver an enjoyable user experience. Our objective was to provide users with instant access to all the necessary features. Alongside the daily voting mechanism for winning prizes, we sought to incentivize users to return frequently by ensuring convenient access to daily voting results updates.
Drawing inspiration from the main commercial, we brainstormed ideas that aligned with the action-adventure themes. Subsequently, we delved into research and created mood boards that effectively conveyed the intended ideas and themes. The tone of the commercial, characterized by a blend of humor and action, guided my construction of a mood board featuring popular action movies and captivating comic book art. Given that our research indicated the significance of creating unique teams for each character to generate buzz, I focused on superhero action movies as they resonated strongly with their respective audiences.
The mood board also influenced my decisions regarding the color palette. By incorporating colors from comics and similar films, I aimed to evoke a familiar sense of excitement. I was entrusted with the task of developing the visual concept for the microsite. Leveraging the chase scene from the main commercial, I skillfully composited a dynamic and captivating scene that served as the hero image for the site. Utilizing character assets from the commercial, I successfully crafted social media ads, Snapchat filters, and other promotional materials.
Campaign Results
- For the duration of Sequels 2.0, there were approximately 2.5 million visits, with return visitors making up about one-third of the total.
- Facebook had the highest number of shares, followed closely by Twitter.
- The Sequels produced more social media buzz (188,400 shares).
Character support was strong; Racoons stole the show. - January 2020 was the highest inquiry month ever with over 1.2 million
- January inquiries were 3.1% above plan
- January new Business was 1.7% above plan
- YTD inquires are 3.7 above Plan
Raccoons 45% votes, Pinocchio 24% and 32% Woodchucks- 2.49 MM Page Visits / 404,200 total Votes
- Programmatics Sequels Remarking:
- CTR more than doubled those of standard Sequels
- VCR was 10 points higher than standard.
- Paid Social
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- FYC and 10-year challenge had the highest outbound CTR
- Saw a total of 97,707 votes across FB and IG
- Instagram generated 88% of votes for the poll creative
- Social-post voting sequels spot had the highest average
- Amazon Results
- Fire Table Takeover had 402K clicks to Sequels LP
- Pinocchio Twitter
- Engagements 4K | ER% 3.26%
- Internal Communications
- 30k out of 40k employees voted
- 7k store items were sold
