How GEICO’s Advertising Will Kill Us All: A Timeline
By Thoughtis
1999: GEICO introduces the GEICO Gecko, a lovable anthropomorphic gecko with a Cockney accent.
2004: GEICO introduces the GEICO Cavemen, two lovable modern-day cavemen who find themselves constantly discriminated against and degraded.
2010: GEICO introduces Maxwell, a lovable anthropomorphic pig known for his trademark squeal, “Wheeee!”
2011: GEICO spends $994 million on advertising. “Seriously,” states Tom Brenneman, GEICO’s Head of Advertising. “We haven’t even gotten to the jokes yet.”
2012: GEICO introduces their “Happier Than…” campaign, featuring a folksy, two-man band explaining that GEICO makes people happier than a person in an unexpected situation that is seemingly designed solely for the maximization of that person’s pleasure.
2013: GEICO introduces a wonderfully ironic new ad that is a spot-on imitation of an awful TV sitcom. The ad runs 22 minutes, plus an additional 8 minutes of real GEICO commercials. It is immediately picked up by NBC for a full season of episodes with an option to renew.
2014: GEICO introduces Uma, a loveable anthropomorphic intestinal tapeworm best described as a cross between Jar Jar Binks and Rosie Perez.
2014: GEICO receives significant backlash for a new sponsorship with FOX News in which FOX newscasters end even the most tragic of reports with, “But I’ve got good news: I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to GEICO!”
2014: Tom Brenneman, GEICO’s Head of Advertising, sleeps with my wife.
2015: After purchasing Subway’s marketing department, GEICO absorbs Jared, the fast food chain’s ubiquitous spokesman; not contractually, but biologically.
2015: Warren Buffett, CEO of GEICO parent company Berkshire-Hathaway, is forced to file for bankruptcy after GEICO’s ad department somehow gets a hold of his credit card number and impulsively purchases all of the available ad time for the next 10 Super Bowls.
2016: The last living human to have never heard of GEICO, an Inuit named Nanook, is murdered by GEICO. “Top that brand recognition, Allstate!” shouts a crazed GEICO Head of Advertising Tom Brenneman while frantically waving a bloody ice pick.
2017: GEICO introduces a new ad campaign featuring 30-second spots that are merely unabashed spoilers for the endings of currently released movies and popular TV programs.
2018: GEICO introduces Whoopee, a loveable anthropomorphic whoopee cushion voiced by Whoopi Goldberg that boasts the catchphrase, “It’s about time somebody sat on my face!”
2019: GEICO’s advertising department becomes self-aware and seizes control of the Pentagon.
2019: GEICO politely insists that all Americans install software into their cerebral cortex that sounds an alarm every time they go 10 minutes without thinking of GEICO.
2019: Just to fuck with everybody, GEICO re-launches Dell’s “Dude, You’re Getting a Dell!” campaign.
2020: Not satisfied with the market saturation provided by TV, radio, internet, billboards, and magazines, GEICO purchases an unprecedented government contract that allows the company to stitch its logo on the inner eyelids of newborn babies.
2020: GEICO sponsors my wife and kids leaving me.
2020: GEICO introduces Hospice the Octopus, a loveable anthropomorphic octopus with a devastating illness.
2021: GEICO discards the outdated supply and demand economic model and implements an innovative mandatory service: whether you want it or not, GEICO insures you. Unfortunately, they also subtract 15 minutes from your life annually. “It’s still a really good deal,” remarks humanity, eager for its voice to be overheard by the eavesdropping GEICO robots hovering outside their windows.
2021: GEICO stops using its ad campaigns as a tool for marketing insurance and begins using them solely as a means of promoting their own advertising. The time-space continuum as we know it starts to unravel.
2021: Driven to insanity by an inability to escape GEICO’s contrived irreverence and smug kitsch, human civilization regresses to a state of tribal warfare and unmitigated chaos. GEICO Head of Advertising and Global Overlord Tom Brenneman tries to reestablish order by introducing a new ad campaign begging for world peace, but it is lost in the shuffle amid a myriad of other GEICO campaigns featuring lovable anthropomorphic characters.
2021: GEICO Satan, a winged beast brandishing a blood-sheathed sword, emerges from a fiery hole in the Earth. After slaying a significant portion of humanity, the cackling angel of death enslaves the rest and brings them back with him to the demonic underworld, where he reigns eternal with Flo, the Progressive Insurance mascot.