What's a Caveman Doing on the Computer?

A rather old Geico ad, as seen by both the pre-historic human and computer, that I thought was quite interesting (this wan't the exact ad I saw but I couldn't find the exact one online). They've stopped using these cavemen based ads and have switched to the gecko and even though these newer ads are OK I thought that the original cavemen were better. By saying that Geico was so easy that even something as unintelligent and comically stupid as a cavemen know that it is a good idea. Then again someone could interpret it as "since cavemen think it's a good idea that probably means it isn't" because of their reputation. I still believe that these advertisements and commercials were funnier and because of that more effective.

This specific ad has a rather obvious use of vagueness. They say that "You could save hundreds on car insurance," which I believe is their slogan because I've seen it before in several of their commercials. If people aren't paying attention that could potentially be great for Geico because then a lot of people will begin to believe that they can just hundreds of dollars cheaper when in reality probably only a very small percentage of people will get this. Thanks to this thought Geico most likely gets a decent amount of business based on people incorrectly interpreting the ad or commercial so I would say that it is a successful use of vagueness because although it seemed quite easy for me to find the "could," many others are not. Of course this vagueness could also be thought of as weasel words and I believe that it works either way.

The main need that Geico tries to appeal to is the need to achieve, at least it seems. This is because of their caveman once again. By saying that it is "so easy a caveman can do it" they try and reach the side of their audience that is either technologically challenged or afraid. They try and get their audience to think that they will have no trouble doing it since this pre-historic human can do it with ease and since this task would normally seem nearly impossible in their eyes they will feel as if they truly achieved something and that Geico helped them do that.

The technique that they use to bring about this need into their audience is the wit and humor appeal. Although I don't think that this is as humorous as other advertisements but it still gets the job done quite well. Even though it's mean who doesn't chuckle silently to themselves when they see someone have technological problems on the most simple of tasks. By thinking about how a caveman would not be able to really do anything with the computer but maybe smash it people find it funny that Geico state that they are so simple that even a caveman has no problem with it. This also means, however, that if someone does end up having trouble with the Geico website and getting a quote then they will just feel really bad about themselves (but I seriously doubt that this has ever happened to anybody).

Overall the early Geico advertisements were both better and worse than the newer Geico gecko, it's just all about you're personal opinion.