Progressive Marketing

The Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, called Progressive for short, is a US automobile insurance company co-founded by Jack Green and Joe Lewis in 1937 and its headquarters is stationed in Mayfield Village, Ohio. Progressive is one of the largest auto insurance companies in the United States and currently insures over 10 million people.

Progressive's TV advertisements depict an insurance superstore with an overly enthusiastic, carefree cashier named Flo, who explains the benefits of Progressive Insurance to customers around the "store". This builds customer interest by focusing on and demonstrating the many advantages and benefits of switching to Progressive. The commercials usually end with Flo saying or doing something funny or random that grabs the attention of its audience. Progressive insures other properties such as boats, homes, and pets if they are ever injured in an accident where an insured vehicle or property was involved. That also builds interest for people who want to have additional properties insured. Progressive also let's you choose a policy that fits your budget and let's you make your own discount (up to 30%) based using a small device that plugs into the on-board diagnostic (OBD) port of your car and monitors your driving habits for 30 days. So you are in control of how much you want to pay. This builds the desire to choose Progressive over other companies that don't offer such perks. Progressive also shows you how much you are saving by switching to them from other auto insurance companies. This promotes action and leads price sensitive customers to take action and switch to their company.

In the commercial below, whether it is intentional or unintentional, Progressive is reaching a new target market by incorporating fictional video game character Sonic the Hedgehog. Or it could be because he's blue and Progressive's main color is blue. Either way, this was a great way for Progressive to reach a new audience because of shock value; it was in good taste, and on a lesser scale, promoting the SEGA franchise by marketing the company's icon. No one was expecting them to take that route and incorporate that particular character, the majority of Sonic the Hedgehog fans are die-hard fans, and SEGA also benefited from this commercial. Based on YouTube comments and other online reviews, this commercial did very well and increased brand recognition for Sonic fans that didn't know about Progressive, and brand insistence for Sonic fans that may already have another insurance company or are in the process of choosing another insurance company.

Here's a second commercial which gives a little more information about what Progressive insures.