After retaining lead duties on the account for a brand revival in January following an unofficial creative review, DDB Chicago launched a campaign for State Farm earlier this month introducing the new tagline “Here to help life go right.”
After putting “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there”–which was a staple for the brand for over 40 years–into semi-retirement, the agency has launched a pair of follow-up spots reiterating the message.
Both ads play up the similarities in very positive and negative situations, showing how the brand can help you prepare for both the best and worst of outcomes. “Furniture,” for example, shows two women fawning over a blue suede couch one of them just purchased. “This piece is so you,” one of them says, smiling, to a response of “I know, right? I saw it and I was just like, ‘I have to have it,'” delivered while holding up the State Farm rewards credit card.
The scene is contrasted with a pair of robbers having a remarkably similar conversation while stealing the very same couch.
The spot uses the comparison to promote both the rewards card and renters insurance, an illustration of how the brand is “Here to help life go right” in multiple ways.
A definite improvement on the “boy daydreams about the future of an insurance company in a utopian future” premise of the anthem ad launching the campaign, the spot manages to illustrate the tagline more convincingly. While the repetition in dialogue works towards that end, it does become a bit grating upon repeated viewings.
“Jacked Up” relies on that most enduring of advertising cliches: parents gifting a new driver with an expensive new car. Still, it does hammer home the tagline with an illustration of the aforementioned rewards card and insurance, contrasting the new driver’s elation with the exasperation of a man whose tires get jacked (hence the punning title).