Mayhem

-Matt Kelly

For the AllState “Mayhem” commercials, they use emotional appeal to perfection. Providing realistic accident prone situations, and having Dean Winters the actor who plays Mayhem, act them out with a dry yet realistic humor. The everyday situation that Mayhem is acting out in the commercial is being a deer crossing the road. He starts by eating leaves in the woods, setting up some humor as he looks directly into the camera, “I’m a wild deer, eating leaves out here and what not, and I come across this road.” He freezes in the middle of the lane because “That’s what us deer do” the car comes over the hill and hits Mayhem/TheDeer. Mayhem rolls off the road and looks into the camera saying “If you have cut-rate insurance, you could be on the hook for thousands. So get AllState so you can be better protected from Mayhem like me.” The Mayhem commercials have strength in their ability to draw the viewer in and keep them entertained, but lack the strength of a good argument by providing vague terms to just how much they cover and how much it costs.

This is an extremely powerful quote that makes the viewer think about what kind of coverage they are paying for from their insurance company. AllState insurance companies target audience in this series of commercials is the middle to upper class. They are looking to get the consumer who is looking to cover themselves completely, and has the extra money to pay for it. The commercial tells us this by the way that they never mention prices during the commercial unlike the “15 minute companies” such as Geico and Progressive, which pride on low prices, but have been known to skip out on otherwise standard car coverage situations. What they do say is that “Dollar for dollar no one protects you from mayhem like AllState.” This is communicating that you are getting the best bang for your buck coverage that doesn’t leave you hanging when you have an accident, even an unusual one.

As a culture this commercial shows that we are tired of watching numbers on the screen when it comes to insurance commercials, for years competitor companies such as Progressive, would have commercials showing their rates compared to the rates of the other top insurance companies. AllState with its new approach of using humor coupled with a perfectly casted actor such as Dean Winters, shows that our society is looking for more of a realistic sense of what type of coverage they are getting, not just how much that coverage is going to cost.

This commercial is effective and leaves the viewer with a sense of protection. It has humor, which keeps the watcher interested and entertained, and finally these commercials are easy to remember. The wittiness makes for great water cooler talk the next day at the office, these wildly popular commercials have received acclaim from the viewing population. Although the argument of the commercial does lack some factual background, it is effective in its persuasiveness of the reader by using humor and real-life situations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OH_gUt4Oww