Oddly enough I like the Mayhem commercials.
And of course, the customers who wouldn’t save didn’t switch.
They used to be good, but lately I think they’re running out of ideas. My garage roof collapsing under a heavy snow, or getting T-boned by a distracted teenager, are things I can imagine actually happening to me, but my life suddenly turning into a Michael Bay movie is not.
Absolutely.
The numbers that are used in those ads are generated by a third-party market research company, and done annually among consumers who have switched auto insurance.
And, yes, someone who was shopping primarily on price wouldn’t switch if they weren’t saving money in the process; but, what we found is that the “who switched” in that legally-approved verbiage tends to not be really internalized by consumers; what they hear is that “people saved with Company [XYZ].”
Well, yes, of course “drivers who switched” saved X amount, because they wouldn’t bother unless the new insurer had lower premiums. They don’t tell you whether it’s only a tiny minority who switch or most people who check out the company that’s placing the ads.
I liked the one where Doug’s son was saying insurance was stupid, and couldn’t even spell insurance.
Well, they have customer service, unlike Geico.
Customer service isnt as important as price, but it is still important.
Terrible Customer Service.
Better than many.
Didn’t he have a mustache? I think he had the glasses.
Correct
Some number of years back one of my sons asked me why everyone didn’t switch to insurance company Y if it saved you $X. I repeated the ‘those who switched’ bit, and a light went on.
My biggest annoyance with the commercials now is how limited they are.
Remember when things like shampoo and dish soap were advertised? Or toys? And food?
Now, it’s insurance. And drugs.
That’s pretty much it. (On, there’s also the defective kids, and the abused animals)
That might just be a demographic thing, based on what shows you watch. Like, toy commercials will mostly be on children’s programming, so if you don’t watch many kids’ shows, you won’t see them. And dish soap and food are mostly advertised in shows that they think will have a lot of homemakers (mostly women) watching them.
Don’t forget personal injury lawyers.
Defective? Hmm 
It’s absolutely a demographic thing, based on show, network, and time of day.
Things like shampoo and dish soap are still advertised, but the era when American TV primarily consisted of three nationwide broadcast networks, all of which were reaching, fundamentally, everyone, is long gone.
If you are watching a cable channel, or a “digital subchannel” like MeTV, the range of ads you’ll see is going to be pretty narrow, and based on the demographics of who typically watches it.
And of course if you watch streaming, your ads can be custom-tailored to you specifically, not just to your demographic.
Oh, and demographic filtering has been going on forever. The reason “soap operas” are called that is because the biggest sponsors were cleaning supplies, because they were on during the day when the only people watching would be homemakers (i.e., the people who buy and use soap).
Heheh, they still do this pretty poorly for myself. I get ads for bras and baby products, two things I have no need for. I also get ads in languages I don’t understand. However, I do reliably get ads for music retailers when I am watching music focused videos.
For me as well, I think mostly because I’m not on any social media other than the SDMB. One of the few patterns I’ve noticed is that the algorithms seem to think I might be a teenage girl, doubtless from my phone spending a lot of time in a place that’s mostly frequented by teenage girls.
I also get the foreign-language ads… I think that maybe they think that the reason they can’t understand me is because of a language barrier? I once saw the same banner ad on a webpage three times in a row, in what I’m pretty sure were Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, and I’ve also gotten ads in Spanish and Arabic.
Remember the summer of '26, when Chronos discovered he was a teenaged Asian/Spanish/Arabic girl?
.
Can’t fight the algorithms, man…
Can we circle back to Doug and Limu for a moment? There’s a newish one where they’re playing tennis, and Doug keeps saying “Limu, ball me!” then reaching somewhere on the emu for a ball.
Where are the balls coming from???
Tucked under LiMu’s skirt, of course.