Hard Sell, Soft Landing

With a long string of super hits under its belt, The Martin Agency of Richmond, VA, landed a whopper by signing up retail giant Wal-Mart for a rethink of its marketing concept. In an undisclosed split billing with MediaVest, the deal is reported to be worth a hefty chunk of Wal-Mart’s $580 million-a-year advertising budget.

After landing such diverse accounts as UPS, the Kennedy Library, the Department of Homeland Security, NASCAR, Olympus, and a slew of others, the agency’s most endearing and ubiquitous campaign has to be the GEICO gecko. Not to mention the cavemen and the simple folk telling their stories helped by movie, TV, and radio stars. Welcome to the new world of marketing.

Not too long ago, advertisements were born in Madison Avenue skyscrapers, conceived by ad men who tapped out copy for radio, print, and television spots on IBM typewriters. You have to wonder what they might make of today’s landscape, where companies fight to place ads on Websites, blogs, podcasts, on-demand cable television programs, mobile phones, and satellite radio. In 2006, ad revenues in the United States alone totaled almost $300 billion. Worldwide, advertising is a more than $600 billion industry.

The changes continue to come at a fast and furious pace. Bluetooth technology has translated to on-the-spot advertising via cell phones, transmitting ads and offers related to whatever stores or restaurants customers might be strolling past. Last year, Nielson Media Research introduced new top-boxes to monitor average viewership for all national television commercials, including stats on how many viewers choose to channel surf during commercials.

Where technology has given, however, it has also taken away. More space for ads has translated to a glut of advertisements, and consumers have become increasingly ad-weary. By one count, we could be seeing an average of 3,000 commercial messages every day.

Technology has also given consumers far more control over how they interact with media. A TV device that allows viewers to fast-forward through commercials? Surely a 1960s ad man would have choked on his martini.

The changes are keeping the ad industry in a constant state of controlled chaos.

“The digital age has changed our lives forever,” says Steve Bassett, creative director at The Martin Agency, the Richmond, Virginia-based firm behind the wildly popular (and lucrative) GEICO gecko and cavemen campaigns. “So it really has to start with an idea, rather than, ‘Here’s a clever headline,’ or, ‘Wouldn’t this picture be funny?’ It can’t start there. It has to start with an idea.”

Where Ideas Come From

Not just any idea. A unique idea. An original idea. An idea designed to address a very specific need. When The Martin Agency landed GEICO as a client, that need was to draw prospective customers to GEICO’s 1-800 line for a quote on car insurance. In the early ’90s, GEICO launched a massive marketing campaign and unveiled its trademark slogan: “A fifteen-minute call could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.” At the time, the ad market for car insurance in general played it pretty safe. Different companies ran slight variations on the same sober and folksy messages, geared toward responsible drivers looking for security and low prices. On the whole, there wasn’t much to suggest that GEICO was on the brink of bringing sexy back to car insurance advertising. Then, in 1994, they hired The Martin Agency.

A Beautiful Friendship

At the time, The Martin Agency was operating on the cusp of what came to be known as the “New Nationals” – hot, boutique agencies operating far from the traditional power centers of major cities and Madison Avenue. Founded in 1965, in Richmond, VA, The Martin Agency started with print ads for regional clients including local banks, utility companies, and car dealerships. They promoted their work aggressively among industry award shows and labored to find creative ways to make big, bold work with relatively small budgets.

Slowly, national brands began sniffing around. Their first major client came on board in 1972 – the Virginia Division of Tourism (the “Virginia Is for Lovers” campaign). In 1989, they landed their first national consumer brand, Wrangler. Three years later, Mercedes came on board. They started to gain a reputation for innovative work that connected with consumers.

As the agency’s relationship with GEICO grew, they learned more about their challenges. “Our goal is to get in with our client and become a student of their business, to really know it extremely well from back to front,” says Dean Jarrett, senior vice president of marketing communications for The Martin Agency.  “We’re very big on strategic planning and basing ideas on qualitative and quantitative research.”

One of GEICO’s issues, they discovered, was name recognition. “GEICO” was infinitely catchier than the company’s full name, Government Employees Insurance Company. But people often mispronounced the acronym.

During a brainstorming session, someone doodled a gecko, and in 1999 a new spokes-animal made his television debut. Although he was only supposed to appear in one ad, an actors’ strike extended his stint. As time went on, people began calling and emailing GEICO just to ask about the cute little British lizard.

His fast rise to popularity astounded everyone. In 2005 he won the majority of 500,000 votes cast during an Advertising Week contest, winning the title of America’s favorite advertising icon. Gecko-mania was a none-too-happy development for the goliaths of the car insurance industry, whose campaigns seemed stale and stodgy by comparison. In 2005, Allstate’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer, Joseph V. Tripodi, offered this commentary on his competitor’s mascot: “I’d like to squash it.”

During its 14-year relationship with The Martin Agency, GEICO has quadrupled in size, going from just under $3 billion in premiums in 1996 to more than $11 billion in 10 years. “We give our advertising a lot of credit for driving millions of people to our 1-800 number, to GEICO.com, and to our offices to get rate quotes on their car insurance,” says Ted Ward, vice president of advertising at GEICO. “The advertising is getting folks to our front door, and our associates are doing a great job making the sale and servicing our customers.”

A New Era

Part of the gecko’s appeal was that he didn’t appear in the same ad over and over. This was The Martin Agency’s response to media research that showed consumers paid more attention to “high-quality, entertaining” ads that weren’t run ad nauseum. To keep customers from getting bored, they produced and ran four spots featuring the gecko in different situations. The technique of running multiple storylines became part of the campaign’s success model.

Industry analysts give GEICO’s campaign credit for setting off volcanic shifts in the auto insurance industry. According to the Wall Street Journal, dollars spent on car insurance ads grew 64 percent in the last seven years, far faster than amounts spent on the wireless telecommunications, banking, and prescription drug industries combined.

In 2004, GEICO’s goal was to steer prospects to the Internet Website, where they could get quick quotes. As price became the main selling point, brand image was more important than ever to differentiate their services. And they put big bucks behind it, earmarking $400 million for advertising in 2005.

As a creative director at The Martin Agency, Steve Bassett is responsible for his company’s creative product. Having worked in the industry for 35 years (15 of them for The Martin Agency), he brings the experience of a veteran to the task of overseeing teams of writers and art directors and making presentations to clients. The part of the job that never gets easier, he says, is coming up with original ideas.

“There are so many great ad agencies and creative teams around,” he says. “Finding stuff that consumers are going to connect with is tough. It takes some hard thinking. You don’t want an idea where people say, ‘Oh, I’ve seen that before,’ or, ‘I saw that commercial but I can’t remember whom it’s for.’ You need to really interlock your idea with the brand and the brand proposition.”

The Urbane Caveman

It also takes focus, which can be difficult for writers and art directors to sustain. “The creatives are curious. They don’t want to be limited, and that’s great. That will lead to amazing work. But, if they go off on a tangent, it’s my responsibility to see that we stay on strategy.”

Bassett boils the goal of the campaign down to a single sentence. In GEICO’s case, the message to get across was simple: GEICO.com is easy to use. Says Bassett, “The writer and art director said, ‘What if we say that it’s so easy a caveman can use it?’”As they refined the concept, the team decided to forgo the traditional depiction of cavemen (i.e., animal skins and clubs) for characters who were hip and sophisticated. That’s when Bassett knew they were on to something.

“Our cavemen were self-aware and, frankly, offended by GEICO’s message – that it was so easy even they could use it. It had a couple of layers working for it, and that’s why it caught on. It’s so tied to the strategy that GEICO.com is easy to use that you can’t separate GEICO and the cavemen.”

Of course, ideas that are fresh and original are also risky, and risk can scare clients. Bassett mitigates the possibility of a flop by working his creative teams hard, challenging them to come up with dozens of ideas. It helps, he says, that his team is made up of experts. They know how to avoid clichés, stick to strategy, and churn out hundreds of ideas in a matter of days. After seeing 20 or 30 ideas, Bassett will choose one or two to further refine and develop. He holds the execution of the idea to a high standard.

“It is my job to protect the idea,” Bassett says. “The details are critical. With the cavemen, for example, it was paying attention to the makeup, the wardrobe, the casting, the dialogue. Making sure it wasn’t overwritten or underwritten. It’s just like the movies or TV shows. You can tell the ones when they’re just going through the motions. Maybe consumers can’t verbalize why they know something is good, but I think they can feel when it’s not quite right.”

During presentations, Bassett hedges his bets by bringing in two or three different approaches to the same idea, and he’s always prepared to back the ideas with consumer research. Even so, new ideas can be a hard sell.

That’s the beauty of a longstanding relationship with a client, says Dean Jarrett. “We’re still working with the same guy we started with at GEICO 14 years ago,” he says. “We’ve built up this incredible sense of trust, and not only is he open to new ideas, he really expects us to swing for the fences. We always laugh about a spot we did for them that involved flying monkeys. It ran for a while, and then he said, ‘You know, we need to get rid of the monkeys. It’s just not working.’”

Signing off on the cavemen, of course, paid off royally. The first three spots were intended to introduce viewers to the concept of urbane cavemen. The first spot features cavemen working as insiders in the entertainment industry. The second ad showcases the cavemen in their modern apartment, outraged when they see GEICO’s insulting message on their laptops. The third sees them dining at an upscale restaurant, dismissive and bitter toward a GEICO rep who apologizes for offending them. “We had no idea you guys were still around,” he says. “Yeah, next time maybe do a little research,” one of the cavemen retorts.

Over a period of two years, the cavemen got more and more attention from bloggers and YouTube users. There were cultish debates about the cavemen’s origins. (Were they gay? Did Val Kilmer play one of them?) Then came the psychological parsings on the ingenious ways the cavemen played on racial stereotypes.

In short order, the cavemen became a phenomenon that led to exposures completely outside the realm of advertisements. A Maxim magazine spread. A mock interview on CNN. An appearance on the red carpet at the Oscars. They even spawned their own sitcom pilot.

Calling Cards

The Martin Agency is still running spots for GEICO. Recently, it unveiled a hilarious series of ads featuring celebrities – Joan Rivers, James Lipton, Little Richard, and “that announcer guy from the movies,” to name just a few – who help regular GEICO customers relay their great experiences with the company. In one spot, “ordinary customer” Brenda Coates is paired with pianist and composer Burt Bacharach.

“Last year I was rear-ended by a GEICO customer,” Coates says blandly, whereupon Bacharach experimentally tickles the ivories. “I was hit…in the rear,” he croons.

The agency continues its commitment to ideas that begin and end with a specific creative strategy. “You approach your clients from a business standpoint,” Bassett says. “You’re trying to solve a business problem. As opposed to, ‘Hey, we’ve got this wacky idea about cavemen,’ instead I might say, ‘Your sales in this region are hurting a little bit, so let me tell you how we’ve been thinking about this and how we might help you.’”

“We’re business people,” Basset continues. “When I go meet with GEICO, I am probably 5 percent of their day. I need to understand that before I walk in there.”

The GEICO campaigns have been a breakthrough calling card for the agency, which has won accounts with Seiko, Discover Card, and ESPN’s X Games. The latest feather in their cap is a $580 million account with Wal-Mart. The largest retailer in the nation racked up $345 billion in sales last year, but received a few public relations blows for driving local merchants out of business. The alliance with The Martin Agency may be part of its recent efforts to change its image.

Bassett’s team meets with Wal-Mart representatives frequently to stay on top of their new products and offerings, even attending strategy meetings and planning sessions. “With Wal-Mart we’re moving into an area where there are lots of reasons to shop there, including low prices. So we’ll help them appeal to a broader audience,” says Bassett. The company’s new slogan: “Save money, live better.”

In addition to the Wal-Mart account, The Martin Agency recently received a call from Al Gore, who awarded them a $100 million account for his environmental nonprofit, the Alliance for Climate Protection. In this case, the dollars aren’t as important as the honor of being associated with a high-profile humanitarian project. “Whenever we find an opportunity to do good work for a good cause, we go with it,” says Dean Jarrett.

Bassett says you can never tell how long it’s going to take to hit on the magic idea. He’s had some campaigns presented, approved, and produced within a month. Other times the incubation period has taken up to half a year. “There are those times when we stare at that big white sheet of paper and think we’ll never figure it out,” he says. “But we always do, somehow.”

Bassett and Jarrett agree that the creative teams are motivated by seeing the positive effects of their work on the client’s business, as well as how they’re received by the industry. Perhaps the best indication of success is when the idea takes on a life of its own in the world at large, getting a mention in a monologue by Letterman or Leno, or creating a buzz among bloggers.

“I have been at The Martin Agency for 18 years, and I can remember when the very best thing that could happen to the creatives was winning an industry award,” says Jarrett. “When you can impress your peers, among the greatest agencies in the country, then you know you’re doing pretty good. Over the past few years, they’ve also grown to really love when their work creeps into pop culture. That’s the kind of good advertising that we want.”