As we all know, Geico employs two different pitchmen for their product: the Gecko, and the Cavemen. The Gecko is in the time honored tradition of Budweiser’s Frogs (which later blossomed into toads and weasels). It’s cute. It’s harmless. It makes us laugh. The Cavemen, however, are targeted at a slacker generation (or a failure to launch generation). This is a much more niche crowd, and requires a lot more skill to read.

Geico has been the gold standard of marketing for a few years now, and it’s a credit to their clever advertising that they parted ways with the single spokesperson convention (even if they are fictional) and avoided casting all their eggs into one basket.

So here we go … which Geico mascot is your favorite ???

Geico Gecko –

Geico Cavemen –

Me, I favor the Cavemen by a landslide margin over the Gecko. For some reason, Geico found that perfect hybrid when they fused an often-cynical, easily-offended, politically-correct persona onto a caveman. Comedic genius.

Why did it work? Because when the Geico Cavemen ads first aired (you probably remember the irate Neanderthal storming off the sound stage that started it all, and the subsequent “roast duck with the mango salsa” followup) the paranoia over being labeled intolerant had reached nonsensical proportions.

The latent message of the ad? “Lighten up. Now even extinct species are offended at being labeled.”

It really was cathartic to laugh at ourselves again and be reminded that we all evolved from one big, hairy, unhappy group of Pleistocene ancestors. This ad was genuinely a public service message in so much as it rendered a much needed public service. A bit of humble perspective.

Kudos, Joe Lawson.