More corporate sponsorship fallout

Tuesday, December 16, 2009 11:48 am ET

Manhattan, NY - From Madison Avenue comes another cautionary tale about corporate marketing campaigns and their spokes personalities. As one marketing analyst explained, "The face of the corporation is very important. When you identify it with a single person or thing, it’s important to convey a positive image. We all remember Clara Peller, the ‘Where’s-the-beef?’ lady. She was so cute and made everyone think of Wendys. Or was it Hardees? Well, anyway, that's not important. Today, when people think of a gecko, caveman or stack-of-money-you-can-save-by-switching, we all think of Geico, right? Well, no longer.”

Many will recall last weeks’ emergency news conference in which Geico announced they were dropping the googly-eyed stack of money from their marketing campaign. As a Geico representative explained during the question and answer period, “We thought we were being smart. We wanted to avoid having all our eggs in one basket, so to speak, so we came up with the unprecedented strategy of having three distinct simultaneous campaigns.” She continued saying, “It became apparent with the economy as it is that people no longer found a stack of money endearing. They felt it was mocking them.” She recalled speaking to a former customer, now living in his car who asked, “Where is all that money we saved now? I don't have it. I think you have it.” The representative added, “It was scary. He was really upset.”

This morning details of a new scandal involving another of the spokestriad emerged. “Caveman”, as he is commonly known, is reported to have recently discovered fire and is alleged to have burned down several libraries, two newspaper stands and a Barnes and Noble. According to police reports, the much put-upon, motorcycle-riding, bowling-going, jet-setting, prehistoric-dude-about-town apparently thought trees from near his cave had been taken, strangely cut and were stacked inside the alleged targets. As the distraught, soon-to-be former Geico spokesperson was being led away in handcuffs, he was overheard screaming, "Arrrr! Treebooks bad! Geico bad! Fire good!" Inexplicably several Starbucks were also targeted.

On a possibly related note, Geico representatives are said to be looking into the mating habits of the common green gecko.

(c) MDJ 2009