'Marketing/Communications Aflac Duck Campaign\r'

'State of the Industry report card Aflac hold over C adenosine monophosphateaign Introduction whizz association which has had success over the finish decade is American Family Life Assurance friendship or to a greater extent than commonly known as Aflac ( beleaguer voice). Historic exclusivelyy, Aflac was a delightful roaring companion exactly they were still lacking(p) that whizz piece to make them recognizable. That matchless affaire the association needed was a face and they set it when they launched their Aflac submerge Campaign. In this paper, the douse guide system volition be discussed along with the account statement of Aflac, stooge audience and competition of Aflac, and the successful outcome of the campaign.History The American Family Life Assurance Company was founded in Columbus, gallium by three brothers, John, Paul, and Bill Amos in 1955. deuce-ace divisions slowr, the keep confederation had their first-year big proposal which was devel oping a crabby person expense policy. some(prenominal) long time afterward, Aflac expanded by adding many respective(a) policies to cover accidents, dental, deterioration, hospital c be, and other health events. In the 1960s, Aflac thrived on making presentations to companies with large sorts of employees. Today, the overwhelming mass (96%) of Aflac’s policies are bought at work with a payroll-deduction basis.Later in the 1970s, Aflac continued its success by expanding into the Japan market. Aflac was only the tertiary American company to sell insurance in Japan. This has proved to in truth successful since today, Japan is about three-quarters (75%) of the company’s tax revenue. Aflac continued to do well through the eighties and into the 1990s and bed a fresh chief operating officer, Daniel Amos, in 1990. infra the newfangledly appointed CEO, Aflac become a passel 100 best company to work in the United States in 2000. Overall the company had interpreted shape beautifully in its history.It was the largest provider of renewable insurance in the US and it was likewise the largest provider in Japan (History 2012). So what is the problem? Daniel Amos cherished to change whiz thing about his company and that was brand sensory faculty. Despite the success, after initiating name awareness ad campaign in the United States Aflac the name recognition for Aflac came back at 2%. later several(a) attempts to get the company recognized â€Å"The Duck” de furthered on new-fashioned Year’s twenty-four hours in 2000 (Amos 2010). â€Å"The Duck” â€Å"We had to do something dramatic,” stated Aflac CEO Daniel Amos in a Harvard Business Review (Amos 2010).In the late 1990s, Aflac began listening to agencies pitch thinkings for new television advertisements. whiz agency, Kaplan Thaler Group, was in a meeting tossing slightly ideas and they themselves were having a tough time remembering the name of the company. A mos explains, â€Å"One day, one of them asked, ‘What’s the name of the account we’re pitching? ’ A colleague replied, ‘It’s Aflac-Aflac-Aflac—Aflac. ’ soul said that he sounded like a dunk, and the idea was born” (Amos 2010). During testing of the different advertisements, Kaplan Thaler ad scored 50% than what Aflac was previously doing.Amos liked that the mercenary pointed fun at the company’s name (Amos 2010). When Daniel Amos tried explaining the ad to others they simply did not netherstand the reasoning butt end it. The first Aflac Duck debuted on CNN on New Year’s twenty-four hours in 2000 (Amos 2010). The part ran four times an hour. From this point on the remnant was history. The first day the commercial aired, Aflac had more visits to their website than the complete year before. Weeks later, the company was getting requests for stuffed animal versions of the sop (Amos 2010).Months later, Amo s describes an event at Disney Studios that Aflac was staging. â€Å"We didn’t know whether it would be a good idea to put ducks on all the tables….. I was just watching to trip up if ducks were left on the tables,” said Amos. This next coppice confirmed Amos had found what he had been looking for. â€Å"I spotted the head of Disney Studios with a bulge under his jacket. When I jokingly asked him what was dismission on, he said, ‘I want you to look that Donald is always king around here. But I want to take one home to my kids” (Amos 2010).Daniel Amos had found a dark horse. A duck quacking out the name of his company with various celebrities repeatedly asking for the company name was his winner. â€Å"The Duck” had been born. Target Audience Aflac believed it needed the duck to perpetrate more of their target audience. With the company’s cancer expense services there was not a great deal more room for growth from that audience. T hat audience is the 35 to 54 year old age group because most of the company’s policies came from parentage groups. Since Aflac was severe to make a push in selling more policies regarding accident nd liability insurances, they wanted to reach out more to families and attract new customers. Since many other insurance companies offer comely much the same insurance policies Aflac needed a way to stick out (Sunset 2008). This is where the duck comes in. contestation Insurance is always a buyer’s market because everybody wants to have coverage and be protected from accidents, liabilities, health, and other events. Aflac offered similar services to its competing insurance companies such as Citizens Financial Corporation, Conseco In corporated, and Amerisafe Incorporated.In a tough industry, Aflac had a hard time selling policies outside of their corporate base that they had already built years earlier (Sunset 2008). They needed a way to leapfrog the competition. This where the duck comes in. Marketing Strategy behind â€Å"The Duck” As mentioned previously, the Kaplan Thaler Group (KTG) was responsible for creating the pitch idea for â€Å"The Duck. ” KTG had create their own advertising model called â€Å"Big Bang. ” KTG’s website describes a â€Å"Bang” as, â€Å"…creates brand experiences and connections resulting in racy relationships” (Thaler).Aflac was looking for that deep relationship with consumers so they could be recognized. All the initial spots for Aflac comprised of one cardinal theme. It turned the company’s weakness, a ambitious name, into its strength by making that most of the campaign’s mood (Sunset 2008). In all the earlyish advertisements, it started with a small group of discussing a new accident or trying to decide what insurance company they should buy policies from. In both spots, the race cannot recall the name of an insurance company, the duck pops up and quacks, â€Å"Aflac! This happens continuously throughout the commercial typically with the duck doing something humorous in the background. When people watched more and more of these commercials they already knew what they were getting and that was Aflac. The name became instantly memorized because of the repeating the commercial provided. face at the ads, there are several examples of tactics discussed from class. As discussed in Day 12 of lecture, just the foundation of distraction compete a role in the commercials. Using the humor of the duck repeating the company name confuse you from what the company s trying to sell but you remembered the name and it made you interested in what the company was. Also from Day 12, the commercial displays the elaboration likeliness model. The level of elaboration is low thus leads the viewers to view the gist peripherally. Now since the viewers pick up this peripherally they are not taking logic, information, or rational thinking into account. They are viewing it as humorous, which in the Aflac advertisements sparked a change in locating because immediately the company was more recognized.People accepted the ready of the message, the name recognition, probably due to how it was spoken to them and who was expression it. A duck quacking the company name to you repeatedly is easy to remember. Also, people had the ability to process the message of name recognition because now that it had a symbolization/face it was so easy to remember. Now that the merchandise strategies behind â€Å"The Duck” have been revealed, it is easy to understand why there were immediate results. Outcomes/Results As previously mentioned, the day Aflac aired their first â€Å"Duck” commercial; they had more visits to their website that day than the previous year.In the first twain weeks of the first year (2000), the company had more gross revenue leads than in 1998 and 1999 combined. In the second quarter of the first year, the company had a record quarter of $168 billion in sales (Sunset 2008). In the first year of â€Å"The Duck” in the United States, sales went up 29%. In three years, sales were forked (Amos 2010). For the first time ever accident/disability insurance swapped with cancer-expense insurance for the company’s military issue one product (Sunset 2008). Also in the third year, Daniel Amos’s goal was met. Aflac achieved 94% brand awareness.The new account growth increased 10% and the mid-sized clientele accounts increased 20% (Kaplan circumstance Study). In 2008, Aflac’s two main markets, USA and Japan, had combined revenue of $16. 6 billion, which is almost double the revenue from the last year (1999) without â€Å"The Duck” (Amos 2010). Aflac has overly been named a great deal 100 Best Company to Work For over the last fourteen years. Aflac was also named on component 500’s list for Best Company overall (Corporate Report 2012). In 2 010, Aflac was the number one preferred voluntary insurance carrier (Kaplan Case Study).These results speak for themselves and Aflac is not slowing down. â€Å"The Duck” is everywhere. Looking at Aflac’s website, there are numerous ducks on each page. Aflac is one of the main sponsor’s for NASCAR driver Carl Edwards, who has a giant ducks all around his car. â€Å"The Duck” makes an appearance yearly in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Aflac has become a mainstay in the world of college football by sponsoring The Heisman Trophy and â€Å"The Duck” often makes appearances with â€Å"The Aflac Trivia Question. ” Aflac also makes appearances with the National Football alliance and Major League Baseball (Aflac Homepage). The Duck” has met some stars over the years as well such as plague Chase, Yogi Berra, Yao Ming, the 2004 United States Olympic Swim Team, and even sketch characters Bugs Bunny and fellow duck, Daffy. Over time , â€Å"The Duck” has also appeared on â€Å"The Tonight Show” and â€Å"Saturday Night hold” (Sunset 2008). â€Å"The Duck” has garnered several awards itself. In 2004, â€Å"The Duck” was named one of the country’s favorite advertising figures (Press clit 2004) and was an original member of the Advertising Walk of Fame (Sunset 2008). Also, a two time Gold Effe Winner (2002 & 2004), Webby Award for Best Web. Com (2010), and People’s Voice Award Winner. The Duck” also had a higher Q Score, which measures familiarity, than Ronald McDonald and the Energizer Bunny (Kaplan Case Study). Aflac does not plan on slowing down this phenomenon all with their newest Duck campaign, â€Å"Get the Alfacts. ” Conclusion In conclusion, it should be obvious that the Aflac Duck was one of the most successful campaigns in the past few decades. The company had a great start with their good long history but it just needed that final pus h. The merchandising strategy put in place by Kaplan Thaler Group and Aflac was well put together and they created the company symbol they wanted. The Duck” was able to target the audience, run out the competition, and get the results Aflac was looking for. When Ms. Kaplan Thaler was asked if the duck will begin saying more than â€Å"Aflac,” she replied, â€Å"That’s going to be up to him. Right now, the Aflacts speak for themselves” (Elliott 2009). References Sunset, B. (2008, January 28). The Aflac Duck Campaign. Retrieved from http://marketing-case-studies. blogspot. com/2008/01/aflac-duck-2000-campaign. html Amos, D. (2010). How I Did It: Aflacs CEO Explains How He trim back For The Duck. Retrieved from http://www. nternationalistmagazine. com/AflacsCEO. pdf Case Studies Kaplan Thaler. Retrieved from http://kaplanthaler. com/clients/case_studies Thaler, L. , Thaler, R. BANG! Getting Your Message perceive in a Noisy World. Retrieved from http://www. thepowerofsmallbook. com/index. php/other Abbey, R. (2010). further Animal Advertisers to Pay for the Use of Animal Images: A Voluntary Certification Approach. Retrieved from http://sjalp. stanford. edu/pdfs/Abbey. pdf Elliott, S. (2009, April 21). Not Daffy or Donald, but Still Aflac’s Rising Star. Retrieved from http://www. ytimes. com/2009/04/22/business/media/22adco. html? _r=1;scp=2;sq=Aflac;st=cse (2012). Aflac 2012 Corporate Citizenship Report. Retrieved from http://www. aflac. com/us/en/docs/investors/CSRReport. pdf (2012). Aflac History. Retrieved from http://www. aflac. com/aboutaflac/corporateoverview/history. aspx (2004, September 20). Aflac Press Release. Retrieved from http://www. aflac. com/aboutaflac/pressroom/pressreleasestory. aspx? rid=616598 (2012). Aflac Homepage. Retrieved from http://www. aflac. com/aboutaflac/corporateoverview/missionandvalues. aspx\r\n'