The Government Employees Insurance Company (GEICO) is an auto insurance company. GEICO (pronounced /ˈɡaɪkoʊ/) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway that as of 2007 provided coverage for more than 10 million motor vehicles owned by more than 9 million policy holders. GEICO writes private passenger automobile insurance in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Rather than relying on agents to sell policies, GEICO uses a direct-to-consumer sales model and puts funds saved from not paying agent commissions toward the purchase of television advertising, with several campaigns running simultaneously in national markets. Its mascot is a gecko with a Cockney accent.



The company's ads sometimes focus on its reptilian mascot, The Gecko, an anthropomorphic Day Gecko created by The Martin Agency and most recently a CGI creature generated by Framestore CFC. The gecko first appeared in 1999 during the Screen Actors Guild strike that prevented the use of live actors. The original commercial features the Gecko pleading for people to stop calling him in error as he is a gecko not to be confused with GEICO. Later "wrong number" ads used Dave Kelly as the voice of the gecko. In the subsequent commercials with Jake Wood, (which portray him as a representative of the company), the gecko speaks with a Cockney accent, because it would be unexpected, according to Martin Agency's Steve Bassett. In current commercials the gecko's accent is more working-class, perhaps in an effort to further "humanize" him. "As computer animation got better and as we got to know the character better, we did a few things," says Steve Bassett, creative director at The Martin Agency. "We wanted to make him a little more guy-next-door. And he looks a lot more real than he's looked before."[3]

Aflac Incorporated (pronounced /ˈæflæk/) is the largest provider of supplemental insurance in the United States,[1] founded in 1955 and based in Columbus, Georgia. In the United States, Aflac underwrites a wide range of insurance policies, but is perhaps more known for its payroll deduction insurance coverage, which pays cash benefits when a policyholder has a covered accident or illness.



Since 2000, the company's identity has become more widely recognized as the result of commercials featuring the Aflac Duck, who frustratedly quacks the company's name to unsuspecting prospective policyholders. The Aflac brand has developed wide recognition recently with commercials starring the famous Aflac Duck on television which started airing in December 1999. The duck concept and all of the commercials to date have been created by Kaplan Thaler Group, an advertising agency based in New York City. Struggling to come up with a concept to make the big but relatively obscure insurance company's name memorable, one of the agency's art directors stumbled upon the duck idea while walking around Central Park at lunchtime uttering, "Aflac, Aflac." He soon realized how much the company's name sounded like a duck's quack. The Aflac Duck character has now starred in more than 30 commercials. The Aflac Duck is enshrined on Madison Avenue's Walk of Fame as one of America’s Favorite Advertising Icons.