NEIGHBORS ARE RARELY GOOD, AND EVEN MORE RARELY THERE WHEN YOU NEED THEM

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

I reserve especially harsh criticism for insurance companies. In the past, I have mocked them in satires and rebuked them in essays. I know what insurance companies are all about: Demand money from you, then stubbornly refuse to pay when disaster strikes. Neither cockney-speaking GEICO® geckos nor ditzy discount-dishing Progressive® saleswomen nor confident black men telling me "Allstate's® stand" will ever persuade me that insurance companies are anything other than what I already know: Insatiable, vicious, unsympathetic private profit machines that capitalize on human qualms about the future.

Insurance companies advertise all the time. I use insurance advertising as a thematic backdrop for my criticism. I analyze insurance advertising to show inconsistencies between messages and practices. For example, I have analyzed GEICO®'s vacuous advertising several times to show that commercial actors rarely provide the most essential information to consumers, like information about prices, risks and even services. Rather, they merely create "visual candy" that forges a mental link between the product and the company. This implants a sensory impression in the viewer, which then yields an increased likelihood that he will remember the image when it comes time to buy insurance. This has nothing to do with educating the consumer about advantages and disadvantages between competing products. It is merely a cynical ploy to trigger a mental reflex to buy something in particular circumstances.

But this is what advertising is all about. It is not about education or even information. It is about sensory perception. For commercial actors, the end is always profit. To make a profit in the free market, you need customers. To get customers, you need to convince people to part with their money. To make customers part with their money, you need to make sure they know you have something they need or want. Advertising does that: It merely advises potential customers that a company has something they need or want. It shows it to them in a memorable way. It plays to their senses. Once it makes an impression, it increases the chance that they will spend their money in the right place. And that fulfills the profit goal.

Still, my purpose today is not to analyze sensory mechanics in American advertising. Rather, I am writing today to take a hard look at a particular advertising message on its own terms. In the end, I will reveal its absurdity.

Insurance companies use slogans to reinforce their visual advertising. In addition to leaving a visual impression with consumers, they also leave an audible one. For example, GEICO® not only hammers a visual connection between geckos and car insurance. It also pairs the image with the ever-repeated phrase: "Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance." Allstate® uses the phrase: "You're in good hands." And State Farm® matches its imagery with: "Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there." Sometimes State Farm even sings the slogan to make sure you remember it. Hey, they need to make sure you reflexively think State Farm® when you need some insurance. And people remember tunes a lot better than just spoken words.

"Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there." What a curious slogan. It reflects an incredibly naïve view of human nature. And that's ironic, because State Farm obviously does not hold that view. I know for a fact it doesn't. I have litigated cases involving State Farm, and I can tell you firsthand that they do not treat claimants--or their opponents--as "good neighbors." In fact, they treat them as mortal enemies whom they would rather see die than pay a red cent.

What is a "good neighbor," anyway? Do people really like their neighbors? Do neighbors actively help each other in this society? It sure doesn't seem so to me. In that light, I find it bizarre that State Farm adopted a slogan that equates its insurance service with the service you can expect from a "good neighbor." In my experience, I have generally found that my neighbors could not give a damn about whether I lived, died or prospered. Some have said hello. Some have not. Actually, most did not. Most just went to work, came home, locked their doors, attended to their own shit and went to bed without even looking at me in the hallway.

In fact, most of my relationships with neighbors over the years have been negative. If they knock on my door, it's usually to complain about something I'm doing. They never stop over to check on me or to ask how my life is going. They never volunteer to help me with anything. To the contrary, they just grumble about me and spread gossip if they suspect me doing something "inappropriate."

And they certainly don't make house calls if I'm suffering a crisis. If I have a problem, they'll never know about it. Even if they did, I seriously doubt they would rush in to help me.

And why should they? American law says that we are not our brothers' keepers. If you pass a person dying on the street, you have absolutely no legal obligation to render assistance, even if you're a doctor. That reflects our society's views about "neighbors" much more than any corny State Farm slogan. That is why I find it flat-out laughable for State Farm to equate its insurance service with the "help" you can expect from a "neighbor" in the United States. You might as well say that you won't provide any help at all, because that's how much help you'll receive from your neighbor. In truth, your neighbor is much more likely to complain about you or even report you to the authorities than help you in a pinch.

This is the world we inhabit.

If this is the level of support we can expect from neighbors, what can we expect from State Farm? State Farm says that it will be "there" for you "like a good neighbor." Well, no neighbor has never been "there" to help me with anything, let alone a "good" one. By that standard, I guess that means that State Farm will leave you hanging just the way your neighbors do.

But State Farm has a greater legal obligation to help than some undifferentiated neighbor. After all, if you pay money for a State Farm insurance policy, you enter into a contractual relationship. Contracts mean that two people promise to do things for each other on pain of legal penalty. Contracts create legal duties to act or refrain from acting. Neighbors have no such duties. In that sense, if you buy insurance from State Farm, you are buying something more than a neighbor's obligation. You are enlisting services for a fee. You are engaging in commerce. You are creating a legal relationship. If State Farm acts like a "neighbor" after you hire it as a "servant," it would violate its legal duties to you. Hey, you signed a contract so that State Farm would give you more than a neighbor would give. But that's still not that much, because neighbors have no obligation to give you anything at all.

Of course, State Farm does not want you to think this way. It wants you to think that neighbors help each other when they are in need. In fact, it wants you to accept the fantasy that your neighbors will actually sacrifice themselves to help you for no reward. That is an extremely Christian delusion; and State Farm fully exploits it. After all, Christian doctrine advises us to "love our neighbor as ourselves" and to help those in need without expectation of reward. State Farm taps into that notion to cast itself as a "magnanimous patron," not a profit-hungry private corporation. And State Farm knows that many consumers equate the term "neighbor" with selfless Christianity.

This is cynical exploitation at its worst. While Christ might have helped his undifferentiated neighbor without hope of reward, most neighbors are not Christ-like. In fact, experience tells us the opposite.

State Farm is no exception. During Hurricane Katrina, State Farm acted exactly like the neighbors I know: It refused to help out at all when people really needed help. State Farm wiggled out from paying "hurricane damages" because it said its policies did not cover flooding. In my own experience practicing law, I recall a case in which State Farm refused to pay its own customer's $60,000 medical bill because it disputed the doctor's belief that the injury was "permanent." So it left its "neighbor" holding the bag with a $60,000 bill and a deformed arm--even though the "neighbor" dutifully paid his premium every month. How's that for service?

But that's how neighbors treat each other. So I guess State Farm was just doing as it advertised: It was just acting like a neighbor.

I find it utterly shameless for State Farm to exploit Christian overtones in the word "neighbor" to lull customers into thinking it actually cares about their welfare. No private corporation cares about anything beyond its quarterly profits. That is the law. Corporations owe no duties to anyone except their own shareholders; and shareholders could care less about magnanimity toward non-shareholders. They want money; and they don't really care if they're "nice" about getting it.

Commerce and Christianity just don't mix. State Farm knows that. It simply proceeds on the assumption that consumers are too stupid to understand the same thing.

Then again, most advertising functions on that premise. If people were too smart, it would really hurt business.

CAR INSURANCE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN LIFE

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

No, I'm not kidding. This is no satire. If there is any correlation between broadcast airtime and importance in life, then car insurance must be the most important thing in life.

Watch network television for an hour. I guarantee that you will see at least four commercials for car insurance. During the same hour, you might only see one or two advertisements for erectile dysfunction or prostate pills. There might be an appeal to send money to children in Africa, or the odd statement from a tax accountant or a lawyer--who usually wants you to join a class-action lawsuit involving prescription medication or car insurance fraud. Mixed messages?

But I digress. Let's get back to the real question: What's so important about car insurance? Why are companies spending so much money--and wasting so much of my time--simply to say that they are selling indemnity contracts for my car? I don't even have a car; why the hell would I want car insurance? They talk about low prices (Allstate), discounts (Progressive) and savings (GEICO). Some take a "trust me" approach (Allstate); others try to throw in humor (GEICO and Progressive). Some provide more specific information, like the fact that they also sell boating insurance, garage insurance, homeowner's insurance, life insurance, renter's insurance and lawn insurance. Other provide no information at all, just a slogan and a phone number.

Animated geckos with cockney accents do not provide commercially relevant information necessary to make a reasonable free market decision, no matter what GEICO's Board says. On the other hand, advertisers don't care about providing information relevant to a reasonable free market decision. They just want you to remember them and buy. It doesn't matter if it's the "most reasonable choice" you've ever made. Advertisers target the visual sense: "See this? Now buy this." That's how it works.

This simple strategy explains why car insurance commercials dominate the airwaves. If a company has enough money to advertise, it will advertise as much as it can. After all, an idiot is more likely to remember something he sees ten times in two hours than something he saw only once during the same two hours. Advertisers like GEICO, Allstate and Progressive know that, so they deluge viewers' senses over and over again. Even if people don't think about car insurance every single day in their lives, advertisers make sure that when they finally do think about car insurance, they also think of their company. By bombarding the senses, advertisers create a mental connection. When the mind strays onto the topic "car insurance," it triggers the connection: "Must buy GEICO." When that happens, advertising has done its work. Advertisers don't want reflection. They want reflex.

Broadcast airtime is a precious commodity. It is very expensive. It can reach millions of people in an instant. It has the potential to spread knowledge, understanding and enrichment. If something appears in a broadcast medium, it carries weight: Someone had to pay a huge sum to air it. To convey a message in such a costly medium, the message must be "important." In that light, does it not reveal something about our society that commercials are the only messages that regularly appear in this medium? The broadcast medium could be used to enrich the population with meaningful messages. But in the end, it merely barrages them with animated geckos, cavemen, obnoxious women chirping about discounts and various entreaties to buy boating insurance. After all, car insurance is important: It's on TV all the time.

Some will inevitably say that commercial messages are the only way that networks can finance their non-commercial messages. But most non-commercial material on most television channels is utterly unenlightening. In many cases, it even bows to commercial pressures. Networks will not broadcast material that alienates their commercial sponsors. In a strange way, then, commercial messages dictate which non-commercial messages ultimately appear on television. Advertisers will not advertise on programs that do not draw people likely to buy their products. This limits the kinds of messages that people hear on television because everything comes back to commerce: The programmer must placate the advertiser first. Only then can he exercise some expressive freedom. Without the advertiser, he can broadcast nothing. Who's more important then: The car insurance company or the viewer who wants to see a show about medieval England?

In my view, this is all very pathetic. In the end, car insurance gets more play than momentous world issues in the United States. It may seem absurd to suggest that car insurance is the most important thing in life. Yet I promise you that you will see more GEICO commercials on television than programs about Darfur, the health care bill or the War in Iraq. Those things may be more "objectively" important, but they do not pay the network's expenses. Insurance companies do. So we hear their messages more than any other messages.

That's why it's perhaps not so absurd to say that car insurance is the most important thing in life. Our country dedicates more airtime to it than virtually any other single subject. If airtime is as precious as we hear, doesn't that mean that car insurance is important? It's getting all the airtime, so it must be important. Very important, even.

GEICO ADVERTISING : INSIDIOUSLY SMART

AN ESSAY

Advertising repels me because it is the language of commerce. In commercial life, private economic actors resort to virtually any means to win a profit. This leads to undignified, obfuscatory and flat-out misleading speech intended to drum up sales. But it is not entirely their fault, because we live in a free market economy. In the free market system, private actors own the manufacturing facilities and distribution channels that move goods through the economy. Government plays a regulatory role, but at bottom, economic activity in America is private. Government simply ensures that private actors do not defraud or injure each other as they bargain, buy and sell. And this is necessary, for economic actors would certainly defraud or injure each other if the law did not constrain certain actions.

In the free market, competition abounds. When private actors compete to offer particular goods and services to the public, consumers benefit because competition forces private sellers into a bidding war for the lowest cost. The competitor who offers the same goods or services for the lowest price wins. Despite this positive effect, however, private competition also induces negative behavior. After all, competition is a form of warfare. It implies that there is a prize that only one person can win, leaving the competitors to fight each other for the glory. If the prize is enticing enough, it will draw countless competitors into a bitter struggle for victory. Common experience tells us that people abandon dignity when it comes to winning a desired reward. Just watch a reality show on television to answer the question whether human beings will do anything to win a tempting prize. The same holds true in the free market. In free market economics, the “prize” is profit and dominant market share. Competitors for that “prize” will do almost anything to win it.

Consumers are the means by which free market actors achieve their goals. To win profits and market shares, commercial actors must reach out to consumers. Because competitors in the same field offer roughly the same goods and services, a determined private actor must persuade consumers to buy his goods and services, not the competitors’. Persuasion is never easy; most people know what they think about particular issues. For example, no florid rhetoric or logical feat will ever convince an abortion opponent to switch his position. But in commerce, people face relatively uncontroversial subject matter. They simply need to buy something, and numerous competitors offer the same thing. In these circumstances, persuasive speech can actually influence a listener. In commerce, speakers do not talk about lofty philosophical issues; they talk about chairs or televisions or bundles of hay. It is not grandiose. The seller who best describes his chair or television or bundle of hay will win the customer. This is the heart of advertising.

Advertising is “commercial speech.” Our Supreme Court recognized that advertising plays a vital role in the free market system in its seminal decision Virginia State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, 425 U.S. 748 (1976). It wrote: “Advertising, however tasteless and excessive it sometimes may be, is nonetheless dissemination of information as to who is producing and selling what product, for what reason, and at what price. So long as we preserve a predominantly free enterprise economy, the allocation of our resources will in large measure will be made through numerous private economic decisions. It is a matter of public interest that those decisions, in the aggregate, be intelligent and well informed. To this end, the free flow of commercial information is indispensable.” Id. at 765. Later in its opinion, the Court clarified that the First Amendment protects only a certain “type of information” within “commercial speech:” “[A] different degree of protection is necessary to insure that the flow of truthful and legitimate commercial information is unimpaired.” Id. 774, fn 24.

What, then, should advertising do? The Supreme Court seemed to know that advertising can be “tasteless and excessive.” It even seemed to hesitate before declaring that advertising deserves protection under the First Amendment. To avoid thorny practical problems, it took a middle course. It protected advertising only to the extent that it protects “the free flow of information” in a private enterprise economy that helps consumers make “intelligent and well informed private economic decisions.” Those “intelligent and well informed private economic decisions,” in turn, depend upon “truthful and legitimate commercial information.”

Why did the Court make these qualifications? If it accorded First Amendment protection to advertising only if it provides “truthful and legitimate” commercial information, it must have known that advertisers all too often disseminate untruthful and illegitimate information about their products. As discussed, competition in the private market is ferocious. Competitors want to win, and to win they must lure in more customers with enticing information. Advertisers do not want customers to hear bad news or facts that will turn them away from their products. If a customer hears that a product has a terrible service record and was rated “lowest in safety” in a magazine, he most likely will not buy it. But will an advertiser mention these facts? Certainly not. The Supreme Court seemed to know that advertisers are not wont to “play fair,” and it only agreed to protect their speech if they agreed only “to tell the truth” and “be fair.”

Asking advertisers to be fair is like asking the devil not to play tricks.

Fairness does not win customers in commerce. Advertising does not work when it tells the whole truth about a product. It works when it implants an idea or image in the listener’s mind. Accurate information may help the consumer make a “well informed, intelligent” economic decision. But advertisers would rather see the customer just spend his money. Whether his decision was “intelligent” makes no difference. More customers mean more sales, and more sales mean more profits. More profits advance the advertiser down the path to coveted victory in the free market competition. As we saw, victory is the ultimate goal. If inaccurate, misleading information results in more sales than accurate, truthful information, which information do you think advertisers will more likely broadcast? In a word, the Supreme Court was hopelessly naïve in concluding that advertisers will always choose the “truthful path” in advertising. The “best” advertisers stretch the truth to the furthest possible limits. In that way, they garner the most customers without technically violating the law. “It was not technically a lie,” they say, “because we printed a disclaimer on the bottom of the page that said: ‘See Store for details.’ So it was not misleading.’” Does such “arguable lying” constitute the “free flow of information” that is supposedly so important to the free market economy?

GEICO is a masterful advertiser because it understands that people do not want to hear truthful, legitimate information about goods and services. The Supreme Court thought that commercial speech was valuable because it “disseminated information” to consumers that allows them to make “intelligent, well informed private economic decisions.” But GEICO knows that such information is boring. People do not want to hear about percentages, statistics and insurance policies during commercial breaks on prime time television. GEICO sells car insurance. It is hard to imagine a more boring subject. So how do they lure in customers? Simple: They do not talk about their exhaustive insurance programs. They do not even talk about how their insurance objectively compares to their competitors. No, they show you an animated gecko who speaks in a cockney accent. Or perhaps they show you a hairy caveman who cannot get a girlfriend or board an airplane. Then, at the very end of the advertisement, they post the company logo and a phone number. A voice then quickly says: “10 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance.”

What is significant about this? First, GEICO’s advertisements really provide no information. They merely stimulate the senses with memorable images. Consumers need car insurance, but they really do not care about the details. They just want to know who sells it and how much it costs. GEICO’s advertisements answer both questions. More importantly, they forge a mental link between “car insurance” and their company. In other words, when a consumer thinks “car insurance,” he thinks “gecko” or “caveman.” Then he calls GEICO. Skillful oratory and “truthful information” did not produce this result. Clever imagery and sensory appeals did. It is neither subtle nor sophisticated. Rather, GEICO advertising proceeds on an unabashed hypothesis: That consumers are completely stupid. GEICO assumes that consumers just want to see animated geckos and save money. That’s all they need to know to make “intelligent and well informed” decisions about car insurance. And they are probably right.

GEICO is shrewder than it appears at first glance. Its most recent advertising push confirms this. Now, GEICO shows completely random encounters between people and a stack of money. There is a pair of bobbly eyes on top of the stack. Then an 80s tune kicks in: Rockwell’s “I always feel like there’s someone watching me.” Narration fills in the gaps: “It (the stack of money with eyes) just knows you want to save money on your car insurance.”

As a satirist, GEICO’s brazen approach amazed me. I have always criticized commercial behavior for its fanatical fixation on money. Here, GEICO actually shares my satirical view, but seriously imputes it to consumers for its own gain. GEICO, like me, assumes that consumers are idiots who just want to make or save money. GEICO puts that view into practice on consumers. Consumers may think that these advertisements are funny. But the joke is on them. GEICO assumes that they are all dummies who just want to save a few dollars. They do not need to hear about why GEICO insurance is better than other insurance. They just need to see a funny image and hear that they will save money. It is cunningly simple. It works because GEICO is right: Consumers are dumb. And GEICO is laughing all the way to the bank.

GEICO is a “good advertiser” because it does not disseminate very much information about its product. The fact that GEICO wins praise for its advertising reveals just how little the Supreme Court knew about commercial speech. The Supreme Court assumed that consumers want to hear “truthful, legitimate” information about goods and services. GEICO, by contrast, assumes that consumers are children who just need to associate an image with a logo, then go out and buy. The Supreme Court thought that commercial speech resembles political speech in the sense that competing economic actors would truthfully debate one another to “persuade” consumers to buy their products because they are “objectively better.” GEICO, on the other hand, knows that consumers do not want to hear reasoned debates; they just want to hear a catchy tune or see a funny scenario that has nothing to do with the product. Put simply, the Supreme Court knows nothing about commercial values. Commerce does not adhere to abstract principle; it knows only expediency. It does what works, not what ancient parchments dictate.

GEICO knows what works in commerce because GEICO understands that commerce is war. GEICO cuts right to the chase with its advertising: “Here’s our logo. Here’s an image you can remember. You could save money. End.” Logic, principle and debate do not enter the analysis. In commerce, there is only one goal: To maximize profits. In the competitive free market, that means luring the most possible consumers to your product. GEICO succeeds because it does not waste time trying to persuade consumers with reasoning or “information.” It simply gives them something funny to remember and tells them they could save money. That is much more likely to motivate the average consumer than a detailed comparison between rival car insurance policy terms. GEICO wisely keeps it simple for the stupid. That is precisely what successful commerce demands.