Geico’s famous animated Gecko used to turn up only in TV commercials. He recently enjoyed guest-star billing on a podcast. The cartoonish figure with the sophisticated accent appeared in June on WNBA player Azzi Fudd’s ‘Fudd Around and Find Out,” thanks to A.I. that allowed the character to interact with the sports star.
So you have to make sure it’s going to work and it’s going to work well. That takes a lot of energy to get the tools working the right way, to train the models in the right way.” Despite the extra attention required, more of Geico’s famous characters, ad scenarios and slogans are likely to debut in surprising venues, the executive says during a recent interview. Over three decades, Geico has “created these character worlds.
You’re going to see us use them a lot more. You’re going to see them show up in places they haven’t shown up in before.” As a result, Geico is seeking intriguing alliances with media outlets. Geico will back “Raiders of The Lost Podcast,” a program focused on popular movies, as well as an original effort from Diana Flores, a star quarterback with Mexico’s flag-football team.
Geico has also struck up a partnership with Apartment Therapy, a media company focused on lifestyle and design, that will result in a new series centered around creative choices and investments that turn rentals into homes. The program will be distributed across Meta, TikTok and YouTube. A new alliance between Geico and Oprah Winfrey’s weekly podcast was unveiled in July.
There is more on the way, and some of it could raise eyebrows. Look for a marketing alliance between Geico and Dairy Queen — both are part of the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio — as well as a Geico holiday special in weeks to come. The company is working on “bringing back lots of our characters into a holiday-themed world, you know, akin to — picture Frosty or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” she says.
Not every marketer could pull off such stuff. Media companies are paying increased attention to upstart digital advertisers that range from the online retailer Wayfair to the A.I. company OpenAI. But these relatively nascent businesses don’t often have the intellectual property to attempt some of the more intriguing — and intricate — concepts that Geico does.
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