Not Stuck in a Cave
Geico’s cavemen still show up regularly on TV ads and especially on the Web, even though their ABC sitcom was cancelled in November after six episodes.
The characters now live online in a mock dating portal that promises to prolong the relentless profile of the quirky, but cerebral Neanderthals.
The Web site, www.iheartcavemen.com, is the latest addition to a portal that Geico has created to give the cavemen an interactive presence. It provides another surreal layer of content about the characters’ private lives and gives fans an opportunity to recast themselves in caveman personas.
The site presents a video profile and dating history for Marty, the lovelorn caveman still trying to recover from his rejection by Tina, a storyline originated in the TV ad series. Male fans can create caveman-like images of themselves and post tongue-in-cheek profiles about their personal tastes and characteristics.
Geico also has provided a way for women to participate: They can create profiles and spawn images of what their offspring might resemble if they found a cavemen mate.
Visitors, male or female, can also rate the mock profiles.
Widgets enable visitors to post their information on MySpace or send them to caveman enthusiast friends.
“Our Geico cavemen have a big fan base,” says Phil Ovuka, Geico director of creative media services. “iHeartCavemen.com is the latest effort to engage that group in a fun and interactive way.”
Geico last year launched www.cavemanscrib.com to extend the imaginary lives of its pop icon Neanderthals in party and post-party settings. The content was developed cooperatively between its marketing and communications departments.
The online storyline was inspired by the unexpectedly broad appeal the characters generated after they debuted in the TV ad series developed by the Martin Agency in 2004. “It grew from a small idea,” says Ovuka. “The more we thought about it, the more quality input we put into the site.”
With the portal having drawn 4.5 million visitors and counting, Geico is planning to build on it with more features, including another interactive component. “I don’t think we realized what a responsive chord we hit. We find that the appeal of these cavemen cuts across demographic boundaries,” he says.
The primary appeal skews young, with most caveman fans falling in the 18-34 age group.
The ongoing TV and online storylines may be absurdly surreal, but the real impact for Geico’s business is very real indeed: Geico estimates that 10% of the visitors to the portal migrate to Geico.com to access product information.
That, of course, is where the concept originated, portraying outraged Neanderthals’ reactions to the mock ad campaign touting the idea that buying insurance from Geico online was so easy, “Even a caveman can do it.”
