*makes gagging sounds*. Ah, yes! Oh, Rae! See, this is amazing to me. I’m not sure why they bug me so much… Could be I’m imagining they won’t meet their sales goals and will end up thinking that advertising just doesn’t work. One thing I do know: This blog post is generating a surprising amount of search traffic. For anyone else who’s curious, here is an interesting introduction to what he’s talking about. Nobody’s hurt, but there will still be pain,” sneers a woman who looks like she’s about to get medieval on you, her voice dripping with sarcasm. But I agree, too much of what we see during commercial breaks today is stupefyingly bad. You’re not alone, Joe. The tagline could even riff on the last line of the Pledge of Allegiance (“indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”). Liberty Mutual is now proud to announce that it “customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need.”. I’m sure David Hoffman, the actor, is laughing all the way to the bank. So annoying I came here. I know they are at this point looking for name recognition but it is also coming with quite a baggage of repulsive imagery and characters. At least Liberty is consistent, eh? Out of curiosity, I recently called liberty mutual and spoke to one of their customer service representatives and asked them if they ever got any complaints on this abomination campaign, the customer service rep said “every day”. it is hard to believe that Liberty Mutual both approved and paid for those commericials. Gimme a break! By the way, if Q turns out to be right, you know I’m going to remind you of this post. Maybe they do but are not “at Liberty” to state their opposition. I liked that campaign, rating it four highly likable spokespeople out of five. Even Geico have given up their gecko. We are also eager to work with multinational corporations. And the “we have to get back to our important work…”, like they’re a community non-profit or something. Rest assured, Liberty is getting an earful. Not sorry!) I really dislike Liberty Mutual’s use of the Statue of Liberty as a cheap prop in the backgrounds of its TV commercials. Not that I’ve ever previously heard a name “limu”. By logging in, you agree to the User Agreement for this Liberty Mutual secured portal A bunch of copywriters and graphic designers get together and throw a bunch of shit at a wall. those commercials are worse than robo calls, every chanel and never ending. There is no point in getting everybody’s attention if you have nothing to offer once you have it. In this Liberty Mutual variant with two versions, we see in the longer version a guy eating a sandwich on a bench overlooking the trademark Statue of Liberty who breaks the “fourth wall” by asking if he’s in a Liberty Mutual commercial, then asking what happens in this one. Thanks for posting, Michael. Allstate’s “You can get 20% discount now,” repeated & repeated. I didn’t dig deep into the numbers, but I couldn’t help but wonder if consumers aren’t making them pay for subjecting us to all of their stupid ads. But, guess what Liberty Mutual? And it is played over and over and over. I guess they don’t want you driving around on three wheels. I love those, too. Some of it sticks. Keep watching the skies.”. You may remember that “Driving on Three Wheels” was part of the same ad campaign that brought us these glittering jewels of stupendous ignorance: This truly stupendous Liberty Mutual parody video courtesy of Stupendous Brian: You have no idea how hard it was for me to watch Liberty Mutual’s new commercials all the way to the end. And I also appreciate your anecdote about calling a Liberty Mutual CSR to ask about consumer complaints. Tags: Liberty Mutual "Interruption", Liberty Mutual seagull commercial. Thank you thank you thank you! Geckos beget emus beget bears that don’t shit in the woods. But to date, so far as I am aware, the company has avoided making public any sales attribution numbers, preferring instead to tout soft and mostly useless metrics such as brand recall (the number of people who associate the ads with Liberty Mutual). Oh, Julie, you aren’t kidding about that witness protection guy’s voice. Great post, Michael! The male is depicted as totally inept, bumbling and lazy and in need of prompting to say his “lines”. But night after night of being molested awake by this metastasizing stupidity (as a tinnitus sufferer, it helps me to sleep with the TV on), has put me in desperate need of catharsis. The Liberty Mutual ads have to be some of the most anal, obnoxious ads out there. After he removed it, he said his quote decreased by nearly 15 percent—about the same as his premium likely would have increased had he had an accident without the add-on. I also wonder if the boy in the commercials, wearing a yellow shirt (I refuse to add additional description) is not ashamed of what he is doing? Create a Profile to access your account online Need Assistance? But I think those advertisers are short-sighted. Oh, no… who in the world is approving these stupid commercials. The damn things put me off so much that I honestly can’t stand to think about them. YOLO!! . I’d much rather that advertisers stuck to selling products than pushing social agendas, but such is the state of advertising. Awful, yes. But night after night of being molested awake by this metastasizing stupidity (as a tinnitussufferer, it helps me to sleep with the TV on), has put me in desperate need of catharsis. As the angry woman in the “Three-Wheels” ad would say: Smart. At Liberty Mutual Insurance we work hard every day to support our customers and our people, so they can protect their families, build their businesses and invest in their futures. Commercials for “liberty” insurance are anti-male at a minimum. You’re right, Ellen. If I were being beaten to death by a barbed wire wrapped baseball bat in the middle of a Turkish prison yard in the hot sun and the warden came out and said “I cannot only make this stop, but I will free you from these walls if you accept this complementary liberty mutual insurance policy”, I would beg for death. I mean four!”. But before we discuss Liberty Mutual’s latest ads, let’s look back at t… Hi, Justin. Then, the vagrant ex-boyfriend of Marie Windsor in the Tobe Hooper version of SALEM’S LOT. It’s all so tiresome. I agree I hate them and the newest one with the thespian lady drawing a caricature of the dufus camera guy eating a long sandwich is one of the stupidest commercials I’ve ever seen! Thanks for sharing your comment! I do the same as you — lunge for the remote as fast as I can. Once again, I find this dreadfully unfunny. I like the cut of your jib, Anonymous! Seriously? The premise of the ad is so bizarre it’s unbelievable. Try hiring an agency that uses intelligence and/or REAL humor! I mute the sound as soon as I hear witness protection guy’s altered voice. Seagulls…I’m reminded of what one character spoke at the closing of the original The House on Haunted Hill movie….”They’re coming for me, now. Liberty Mutual ads were horrible enough without adding that two-bit liberty liberty liberty LIB ER TY “musical” shit. Bad ads can give a brand a bad name. No, you fool. BTW, I have American Family, and would NEVER switch to LM or Geico or (gasp) Progressive because of their stupid ads. Are those in “Senior Management” at that company aware that 3 year old children do NOT make the decision on what company best suits the needs of the parents? But nah, I’m sure it’s more fun to conjure madcap capers for a giant flightless bird. Meanwhile, Allstate reported a net income of $1.2 billion for the same period. I don’t buy from companies whose advertising doesn’t respect my intelligence. Will Doug and LiMu waterski over a shark tank? Check out the YouTube comments. We get a Limu the emu and I cannot for the love of me, figure out why? Yes, Gary. I don’t know what you mean by “Ditkas,” but I must say I’m amused by the number of people who have found this post by searching for some variation of “Liberty Mutual TV commercials are bad/awful/terrible.” As you say, it’s good to know we’re not alone. I once saw a parody of a scene from “The Birds” (a Mel Brooks production, I think, perhaps “High Anxiety”) where the victim was targeted by waiting birds that wanted not to peck at or bloody him, but poop on him. Unfortunately, too many advertisers still don’t understand that just as good advertising can increase sales, bad advertising can turn people away. Hey! . As a former Mad Woman who spent days evaluating creative & marketing approaches to develop commercials, the current commercials are testimonies to the dumbing of America. Liberty Mutual consistently has the most unctuous and idiotic ads on TV. He talks about how Liberty Mutual customized his insurance so he only pays for what he needs…what a great day! Unlike any of the emu ads so far, that would actually be funny. Liberty is definitely getting an earful, but its round-the-clock carpet bombing of TV commercials must be driving enough new quotes and customers that they just don’t care. Large, commercial markets in the United States, including Fortune 1000 public- and private-equivalent companies, are a great fit with Liberty Mutual Surety. Most famous as Peter Lorre’s “boy friend” in THE MALTESE FALCON. It ranks 75th on the Fortune 100 list of largest corporations in the United States based on 2018 revenue. Don’t even get me started on her and that Mayhem guy. Tweet them directly at @LibertyMutual and add a #LibertyMutual for good measure. So many advertising “creatives” today have no clue. The clients keep buying it. Too bad you can’t escape the ads! LibMut saturation tv ads are like carpet bombing. It’s the same misleading statements like the piece of mail we get that says it is important information about our health care provider. But they sell the piece of crap to the client as this hugely innovative idea that’s just so, so funny and memorable. Nature’s little creatures can be cute and appealing on a singular basis, but creepy and menacing when they swarm you in large numbers. I LOATHE ENTIRELY every Liberty Mutual commercial! It’s like nails on a chalkboard, as you said. 14 talking about this. Then I tape everything else that I want to watch so when I watch the other programs I can simply fast forward through all of the commercials and I avoid them, life without commercials is the best thing ever! Seems racist to me. The proud mom whose son has no idea how to change a tire. I get to write a funny ad my friends and family will see on TV! Until someone with sense realizes that the campaign sucks, half of everyone hates it, and any benefit to sales is the result of the media buy rather than the ads themselves. Doesn’t help with kids watching of every race who will assume white men are actually like this. . As for the direct mail you mentioned — yup, shady. They have been running so many ads in the last couple months, there has to be a bump in their customer acquisition. They are just stupid. New User? This speaks to my soul! Interesting take. I have to mute the TV each time one comes on or I go into a rage. Equally hard to believe that some agency is putting this stuff out as a product. The goofy white beta male who throws his wallet into the harbor. Grrrrrrrr! Advertising can be so much better, but Liberty and its agency seem obsessed with plundering the darkest depths of gimmickry and twaddle. Liberty Mutual TV commercials are a special kind of irritating — and I have the search traffic to prove it. I would take my chances and go without insurance if my only choice was LIBERTY MUTUAL INSURANCE! Sorry. And I am not alone. Then a gull swoops in, stealing his sandwich, making it just an “OK” day. What people do then is just nervously edge away.”. (Video and review here: https://thecrankycreative.com/liberty-mutual-ad-review-zoltar-and-other-bad-ideas/). Exactly in the same way “geico” has used a lizard to annoy the hell out of the country because geico and gecko are similar. I also hate the esurance commercials with Dennis Quaid. “You totaled your brand-new car. Hi, Aaron. LIBERTY! I can’t for the life of me imagine what they were thinking. Stupid pandering to dumb down the customers. I’m intrigued by how Liberty Mutual’s decision to spend $2.37 for their new grade school quality jingle (as if the CEO was personally pissed off at their former marketing agency). Liberty’s ad agency is Goodby, Silverstein and Partners. All that money spent on advertising a commodity product. They were once seen as reputable. I don’t hit the mute button but instead change the channel in hopes that the ratings monitors will somehow pick up on how these hideous commercials are impacting viewership. I’ve never done this before, but I actually sent and email to LM expressing how annoying I think their tv spots are. Liberty Mutual Group is an American diversified global insurer and the third-largest property and casualty insurer in the United States. I know people in the industry who scoff at the idea that any consumer would avoid a brand strictly on the basis of the advertising. Have you noticed they seem to be saying “Liberdy” instead of “Liberty”? Now every commercial has blacks depicted as Superior and held in high esteem. To me it just looked like another lame attempt to be funny by showing two singers looking surprised at the third singer’s improvisation — whether they thought it was good or bad is open to interpretation. As I was researching this post, I read a comment from someone who said he had recently shopped for car insurance, and the company (not Liberty Mutual) had automatically included “accident forgiveness” in his quote. But before we discuss Liberty Mutual’s latest ads, let’s look back at the previous ones as the new work is derived from there. I agree, Anthony. Hi, Sharon. The latest one has a high pitch beep every few seconds. The late, great Elisha Cook, Junior. All Liberty Mutual ads are so stupid and annoying. A kid at Christmas loving a big Liberty Mutual box vs another getting a bicycle and kicking it is asinine. Why would any insurance company worth its salt charge you for stuff you do not need. WELCOME TO 2020, THE YEAR THE RACE FOR THE BOTTOM BEGAN, LIBERTY MUTUAL IS IN THE LEAD, WITH PROGRESSIVE, GEICO, AND ALLSTATE CLOSING THE GAP, THE TRUE WINNER TO THIS POINT, IS MY MUTE BUTTON. https://www.ispot.tv/ad/I8u2/at-and-t-fiber-and-directv-check-on-the-baby#. Great post, Mark! Moving on, an ad I like to call “Witless Protection.”. Rob All of the insurance commercials are low brow stupid and annoying, but this is a different kind of animal. There is a reserved circle in hell for the people who greenlit these ads. Cranky Ad Review Score: One enormous misspent marketing budget out of five. But I agree with you about “What if I come out of the water?” That’s actually pretty funny. I hope so. Change ), "A fox is a wolf who sends flowers." (“At least Liberty Mutual doesn’t hold a grudge,” says the man. Oh, how I’ve been dying to review these ads. Liberty Mutual Commercial Nov 2020 debut of a kid kicking his new bike is so wrong. You get extra points for the “chopping broccoli” reference, which made me LOL. In the shorter version, the same guy is on the bench, sandwich in one hand, chips in the other. What put me way over the top is when they added the jingle at the end which is literally worst than fingernails on a chalkboard. Also despise the Acapella one with the person of color improvsing and the white singers give him dirty looks. I have a friend that works at Liberty. The most recent ads with the high-speed road chases, sirens, and shouting are a cacophony of stupid, and I’m convinced that Liberty and its agency are both well aware of it. I find the Limu Emu commercials irritating and moronic. We live in a world of repetitive irritation. They’re going to reimburse you at the car’s current market value considering its age and wear. But hey, Goodby Silverstein and friends, is it really that hard to come up with an idea that’s cute, clever, or at least less chafing than backing pantless into a pine cone? Blamed on COVID, of course. “Goodby” to these commercials. ( Log Out /  The newest ad with “Doug” speaking into several microphones is awful. It’s called depreciation. Either way, thank you for allowing a platform to vent about this most evil attack on humanity. Liberty Mutual with their silly running team of a guy and an emu, Progressive with their team of white uniformed stars of absurdity, add to them GEICO getting more and more absurd, senseless, and meaningless. I actually think that line is clever, but it’s the only thing clever about that ad. Time will tell how that works out for them. Check ’em out: https://thecrankycreative.com/liberty-mutual-ad-review-zoltar-and-other-bad-ideas/. Yes, Leonardo. I think the tactic is cheap, rude, and disrespectful, and it’s one of the many reasons I consider Liberty Mutual ads to (still) be the worst on TV by far. I was just looking at some comments on LM’s YouTube channel, and they were all glowing. We saw this theme at play in an earlier Jiff peanut butter commercial when one young lady eating a peanut butter sandwich encountered a squirrel beseeching a bite, soon to become a legion of them led by a humanoid figure with a squirrel head; creepy and surreal! Since the “Brad” ads I’ve made it a point to tell him when each new commercial comes out how terrible these are even compared to the obnoxious Flo from Progressive ads. Too bad LM doesn’t have management with the knowledge and experience to realize that if they are getting an upswing in quote requests, it’s likely in spite of their creative, not because of it… Considering the saturation they appear to be buying, in my observation, they are bound to see increased inquiries. Absurd is the new goal in most of these commercials, who can get more absurd. https://thecrankycreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/fitness-junkies-liberty-mutual-car-insurance.mp4, The Top Tens: Companies with the Most Annoying Television Commercials, Previously TV: Commercials That Annoy, Irritate or Outright Enrage, Bob Garfield’s book, “And Now a Few Words From Me.”, four highly likable spokespeople out of five, https://thecrankycreative.com/liberty-mutual-ad-review-zoltar-and-other-bad-ideas/, Ad Review: Liberty Mutual’s LiMu Emu is Lame-O, Dr. Pepper's "Sweet One" ads hit a sour note, Ad Review: Schick Hydro Silk TrimStyle “trimming bushes”, Ad Review: Tonal TV commercial shows and tells, Liberty Mutual ad review: no safe harbor from bad humor, [Free download] Marketing creative brief template. All that money spent simply to keep the company name in the minds of prospective buyers. Thanks for your comment and stay tuned–I’ve just decided I’m going to review the “LiMu Emu & Doug” ads soon! But LM has clearly decided to pursue the “funny” route with its commercials. But, maybe there’s good news. Liberty Mutual has not had 1 good ad I've ever seen. The LiMu Emu commercials started out bad but have become increasingly shrill. Imagine if it was creative copy that inspired us instead of disgusted us. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Here’s my problem with these ads: They seem specifically designed to stir the emotions of entitled dimwits who think it’s “no big deal” to “tap” another driver’s car, who see rate increases as unfair punishment for having caused an accident, and who are all too eager to blame their troubles on everyone but themselves. I bet you’re glad to be out of the business. Enter Liberty Mutual, the company whose car insurance commercials feature bad drivers airing silly grievances in front of the Statue of Liberty. Thank you for broaching this subject, James. . I can at least block the robo calls, I would never get Liberty Mutual, Most because the ads suck so much and they turn me off. That LiMu Emu ad with the siren is terrible, but it’s perfectly in line with the advertiser’s apparent strategy to use obnoxious noise to get people’s attention. Yes, I feel that way too — that most of today’s ads must be driven by 30-somethings or younger. Geddit? The sheer size of Liberty’s ad spend is enough to guarantee a rise in quotes. Liberty Mutual, one of the nation's largest insurers for home, auto and life insurance, was ranked one of the ten worst insurance companies in America by the American Association for Justice (AAJ) for claims handling https://unshackledminds.com/the-fall-of-the-cabal/. Rob, good observations! Now I feel better. ( Log Out /  Great. But this one is one of the worst. I got sick and tired of having to watch their commercials. My God I’m not alone in the wilderness! It’s the one I hear people complain about most often when the conversation turns to television commercials. Subscribe to Liberty Mutual: https://bit.ly/2yXYG8I I knew I wasn’t alone in feeling overly irritated by the LM commercials. (Just look at the “Peloton Husband” to see how willing some people are nowadays to malign white men who aren’t made to look weak or dumb.) If you want to give Liberty Mutual a piece of your mind, you can leave a comment on the company’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/libertymutual/) and/or Twitter page (https://twitter.com/LibertyMutual). And that jingle makes me cringe everytime! The spot evokes a little of Hitchcock’s The Birds, still a worthwhile view after many years. This entry was posted on February 13, 2021 at 12:16 pm and is filed under advertising, animals, avian, commercials, feathered friends, furry, television. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window), Liberty Mutual ad review: Zoltar, bad actors, and other dumb ideas. Liberty Mutual Canada Client-tailored - risk solutions throughout Canada. . Now there’s an idea for a LiMu Emu commercial! Once upon a time, Michael, your assessment of Liberty Mutual’s ads may have been considered hyperbole. I thought it was just me who hated those commercials. These adds made me choose Allstate and I didnt even compare LM’s prices. Give it time. If the goal of advertisers today is simply to “out-whacky” each other, then it’s only a matter of time before companies realize they don’t need ad agencies at all. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Such a beautiful spot that I have not heard of or is it fabricated for the commercial… Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. On the other hand, it’s not entirely their fault. Then they add the stupid shi(t) eating Before Limu Emu, they had some guy who would — and I’m not kidding — describe their print ads and billboards.