It’s day… too many to count in quarantine, and the Progressive Insurance team is busy working from home.
Arnold Worldwide has released a new trio of WFH commercial spots starring the Progressive team members. These spots feature the sales squad participating in everyone’s favorite WFH activity: video conference calls!
How does each call pan out for our favorite insurance spokespeople? Let’s watch (and totally feel) their relatable mishaps together.
“Role Play”
Progressive’s Flo, Jamie, Mara, Alan, Rodney, and Lucy have all dialed in to this video call. Flo kicks off the call with a group role play activity. Jamie will be the sales rep and Mara will be the customer.
Jamie, always enthusiastic about Progressive’s offerings, asks Mara if she would be interested in bundling her home and auto insurance with Progressive.
“No,” Mara replies in a deadpan, disinterested tone.
“Well, you could save money!” Jamie insists, sticking to his sales pitch.
Mara combats by saying she’s actually an independently wealthy customer. Okay…
Jamie, undeterred, announces that bundling Mara’s insurance gives her round the clock protection. But, Mara is quick to reply that her customer persona has a bodyguard.
With 15 seconds left in the spot, Jamie declares Mara’s customer is simply too unrealistic to work with. However, the rest of the team jumps in with swift feedback ranging from Jamie “not really selling it” to Lucy declaring it was just a “really bad” interaction.
Fresh out of options, Jamie attempts to pivot to reach the youth with a rap song. The twenty years too late flow is clearly coming from off the top of the dome. Immediately, everyone on the team discourages Jamie’s rap. Let’s try this again in another video call, shall we?
“Tech Issues”
What’s a videoconference call without tech issues? Each member of the Progressive team grapples with a unique tech issue that makes it difficult to connect.
- Jamie: Falls victim to blurry screens and cuts out on videos frequently.
- Alan: Uses this time to vacuum, needs to go on mute.
- Flo: Struggles to connect to WiFi, find the right video lens to look into so we can see her face, not a close-up of her lips.
The end of the video has cleared up only one issue. The typo on Progressive’s Insurance slide seven reads “big discosnouts.” It should be “discounts” for customers that bundle and save on home and auto.
“You sure about that?” Mara deadpans.
Hey, at least one thing’s clear. It’s still easy to save with Progressive.
“Mara Unmuted”
This videoconference would easily have been Progressive’s most successful call yet. If only Mara had used the mute button!
Speaking to someone off-camera, Mara shares she’s free once she’s done with this meeting.
“Yeah Jamie’s the guy running it,” Mara continues, still unaware her mute button is on, “I once had to fake jury duty to get out of talking about his yogurt preferences.”
Yikes! Flo quickly reminds Mara that she is not on mute. Mara is surprised to learn that there’s even a mute button at all on these platforms.
She appears to turn on mute, but it doesn’t really work. The gang hears Mara telling her off-screen pal that the person speaking is indeed Flo — the person who looks like she smiles when she sleeps.
“I always smile,” Flo replies.
“That’s why I said that,” Mara says.
The truth presumably sets you free, but pro tip? Next time Mara… please mute the call. Big thanks in advance.
Also, can we invite The Progressive Box for a future videoconference call? He would be perfect for a happy hour chat to serenade the team after a long workweek.
