Even if you haven't seen the show, I'm sure most, if not all, of you have heard of the HBO series "Game of Thrones." The first episode of the first season is called "Winter is Coming," and it sets the tone for the whole series. Just as the show has become an instant hit and has won 32 awards, including 1 Golden Globe, and has been nominated for 70 more, Allstate Insurance's commercial advertising character, Mayhem, played by actor Dean Winters, has gained a huge fanbase and won at least 80 advertising awards in its first year alone. The ad campaign won a Clio award in 2012.
Mayhem is the human personified unpredictable disaster that awaits you around every corner, and Dean Winters is just the man to play that role. Winters himself dealt with an unexpected bacterial infection in the Summer of 2009, which caused his heart to stop for 2 1/2 minutes on the way to a hospital, led to three weeks spent in intensive care, and led to Winters developing gangrene and having to get two of his toes and half of one thumb amputated. Winters recovered, however, and actually rose like a Phoenix, returning to television acting and signing on with Allstate in the Spring of 2010 to do the Mayhem commercials, which began airing in June, 2010.
The advertising agency, Leo Burnett North America, out of Chicago, has been Allstate's creative agency since 1957, and at least for this campaign, they chose not to copy test the ad, "ran with their gut," and just produced the commercials and sent them out. Allstate Senior Vice President for Marketing, Lisa Cochrane, stated, "If you copy test, you will come to the lowest common denominator," meaning, "you'll get the most vanilla advertising," as creative director Mikal Pittman put it.
The ads are directed at the younger demographic, who tend to buy lower-priced, economy insurance, which the Mayhem ads suggest may not cover unpredictable situations in life that cause such destruction. Nina Abnee, Leo Burnett's Executive Vice President, put it bluntly, "We wanted to kick Flo's ass," and I'm pretty sure they've done just that.
-Cory G. Smith
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