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Company Case 12
Allstate: Bringing Mayhem to the Auto Insurance Advertising Wars
Synopsis
Once a group of massively boring companies, auto insurance firms were not known for
creative advertising. That has changed dramatically in the past decade as all of the top
companies have developed creative and entertaining campaigns based on widely
recognized personality symbols. Each of them also poured more and more money into
advertising and promotion in an effort to grow or protect market share. This case follows
Allstate’s efforts by extending the longest-running slogan to the Mayhem campaign.
Teaching Objectives
The teaching objectives for this case are to:
1. Consider the past, present, and future of advertising and the factors that are
affecting it.
2. Analyze a campaign based on the elements of a creative message.
3. Understand the factors involved in selecting advertising media.
4. Examine factors for assessing advertising effectiveness.
5. Gain practical experience by designing an advertisement for the Super Bowl and
integrating it into a full campaign.
Discussion Questions
1. Why has Allstate’s “good hands” slogan withstood the test of time to become
advertising’s longest-running slogan?
A strong emotional appeal is the core of a good campaign. This is particularly
true when it is an emotion such as reassurance in relation to a potentially big
2. Analyze Mayhem ads based on the process of creating an advertising message as
outlined in the text (for Mayhem ads, check out
There are numerous different examples of Mayhem ads that students can analyze,
Breaking through the clutter. As the text points out, “today’s content must be
better planned, more imaginative, more entertaining, and more emotionally
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Part 1: Defining Marketing and the Marketing Process
Merging advertising and entertainment. The portfolio of Mayhem ads illustrates
Message strategy. As noted above, the Mayhem campaign has a very strong
Message execution. Of the message execution styles listed in the text, personality
3. Discuss issues of selecting advertising media for the Mayhem campaign. How
might this process differ from that of campaigns for other companies?
The main battleground in the insurance advertising wars is without a doubt on
television. The 30-second spot ad is the primary weapon of choice. Each of the
4. Based on the information in this case, how might Allstate measure the
effectiveness of the Mayhem campaign?
Because the core of the campaign is TV spot ads, there are certainly the
traditional measures of using surveys to assess ad awareness, knowledge, and
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Chapter 1: Marketing: Creating and Capturing Customer Value
5. Has the Mayhem campaign been effective? Support your answer.
This is a crucial question. Award winning, very creative, super likeable and
entertaining, it would seem that this campaign has all the right elements as a
winner. But when assessing any campaign, the criteria must be rooted in the
objectives of the advertiser. What were Allstate’s objectives? From this case, the
Dennis Hasbert “Are you in good hands?” campaign was supplemented with
Mayhem in order to “kick Flo’s ass.” While the reference is specifically to staving
off market share increases from Progressive, one can most certainly assume that
Allstate was also referring to GEICO—and maybe even more so given that
GEICO was growing faster and posed even more of a threat. Has it worked?
GEICO just passed Allstate as the number two auto insurer.
This might lead some to quickly jump to the conclusion that the Mayhem
campaign has not been effective. However, be sure to point out that there are
Teaching Suggestions
Prior to discussing the case, have students select their favorite auto insurance
advertisements. Have them do so prior to coming to class. Select a few to come forward
and play those ads for the class. Discuss whether or not these ads are merely entertaining
or actually strengthen the brand and provide advertising return-on-investment.
This case was developed for use with Chapter 12.
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