Have you noticed the New Ad Campaigns from Esurance (new brand identity as well) and Allstate? Esurance is going for a more grown up feel while Allstate is injecting some humor into their advertising. Looking from the outside in, one could almost say that both Esurance and Allstate are going after each others current demographic. Esurance redefines it’s brand and advertising, stepping away from it’s long associated cartoon character ‘Erin Esurance” (who knew she had a name) and molding into what we would say is a more traditional brand identity and ad campaign. Esurance is focusing on the customer service side with what one could classify as ‘creepy’ spots. The humor they are trying to inject is a bad version of ‘The Office’, it just doesn’t seem to work. But that being said, we can tell they are trying to go after an older demographic, well at least older then the twenty something college student having to pay for car insurance for the first time (I should know as that was me, and still is. The Esurance customer part, not twenty something college student).

On the other hand, Allstate is injecting some very dark humor (which we have to say is brilliant) with their ‘Mayhem’ campaign.  The jest is basically a character actor is playing ‘Mayhem’ whether it be a new puppy tearing up the back seat in your car, a guy who keys cars, lighting that strikes a tree which falls on to your house, you get the point. Some might consider this a scare tactic, which it is, but it does come across in a harmless way. The dark humor spots seem to suggest that Allstate is going away from or in addition to it’s usual talking head approach, targeted towards a younger demographic whom sees the humor, not the obligatory scare tactic.

Either way, we see this as an evolution of the two brands geared towards grabbing market share. Market share presumable from Flo (Progressive) and Gecko (Geico)…