Disclosure: I work in advertising, as a strategist, and I worked with a major property-and-casualty insurance company for several years.
Geico has regularly run several different campaigns simultaneously. The Gecko ads are pretty much evergreen for them, but they also regularly cycle in new ideas, to see if they stick. The Cavemen, the “troubadours” campaign (which included “Hump Day”), etc., all get introduced by Geico, and if they turn out to be popular (esp. if they generate social media buzz), they may stick around for a while, and/or get rotated back in regularly.
They’re currently running a campaign with “stars and regular people,” like this ad with former NFL star Emmitt Smith, and a “regular person” translating Emmitt’s words into plain talk about Geico; it’s a twist on a similar campaign which Geico ran about 15 years ago, with stars who are known for talking oddly (like this one, with Peter Frampton using his “talk box” ), translating the testimonials of “real Geico customers.”
Geico pioneered the use of humor and “characters” in property-and-casualty insurance, as well as simultaneously running multiple campaigns, and the other big players eventually followed. Frequently, the different campaigns have slightly different messages: for Progressive, the “Flo” campaign is primarily about their main claim around shopping and saving, while the “Dr. Rick” ads are targeted towards younger people, with a claim that’s specifically around saving money by bundling homeowner and auto insurance. For Geico, the Gecko ads are usually around their main claim around savings, while the Cavemen ads are around ease of shopping and switching (“so easy, even a caveman can do it”).
Geico and Progressive also run smaller campaigns, often with the same characters, to inform people that they also offer specialty insurance (boats, RVs, motorcycles, commercial vehicles, etc.)
