Give up? Well, the problem here isn’t necessarily the premise itself–although it’s very below-par–but the fact that they could have selected literally any name for the robot, yet chose Flobot. This will, I predict, become problematic for Progressive (if it hasn’t already), because in the prehistoric era of 2008, The Flobots were a semi-famous band for a couple months, largely due to their initially-catchy-yet-inevitably-obnoxious hit “Handlebars”, which aired on the radio all summer.
Maybe you’ve never heard of this band. I personally don’t care for them, so I wouldn’t blame you if you hadn’t. However, the music video for “Handlebars” has nearly 9 million hits on Youtube by itself, so it’s safe to say that millions upon millions of people know of them. I find it hard to believe that during the entire process of making this commercial, nobody stopped and said “Hey, wait a minute…do you think the band called Flobots might try and sue us?”
I’ve previously held up the Flo-related Progressive commercials as fairly effective, and that’s still generally true. However, this particular ad featured some sloppy decision-making on their part, and it may end up costing them. In fact, 5 minutes of research on this matter tells me that the Flobots may do a benefit concert for something-or-other, and publicly challenge Progressive to match whatever money gets raised.
Of course, since they fell off the map approximately 4 years ago, I guess it might not cost Progressive all that much.
Frustration Index Meter: 4/10
These Commercial Messages 