Marketing/Communications Aflac Duck Campaign
State of the Industry Paper
Aflac Duck Campaign
Introduction One company which has had success over the last decade is American Family Life Assurance Company or more commonly known as Aflac (duck voice). Historically, Aflac was a pretty successful company but they were still missing that one piece to make them recognizable. That one thing the company needed was a face and they found it when they launched their Aflac Duck Campaign. In this paper, the Duck campaign strategy will be discussed along with the history of Aflac, target audience and competition of Aflac, and the successful outcome of the campaign.
History
The American Family Life Assurance Company was founded in Columbus, Georgia by three brothers, John, Paul, and Bill Amos in 1955. Three years later, the company had their first big plan which was developing a cancer expense policy. Several years afterward, Aflac expanded by adding numerous diverse policies to cover accidents, dental, disability, hospital care, and other health events. In the 1960s, Aflac thrived on making presentations to companies with large groups of employees. Today, the overwhelming majority (96%) of Aflac’s policies are bought at work through a payroll-deduction basis. Later in the 1970s, Aflac continued its success by expanding into the Japan market. Aflac was only the third American company to sell insurance in Japan. This has proved to very successful since today, Japan is about three-quarters (75%) of the company’s revenue. Aflac continued to do well through the 1980s and into the 1990s and named a new CEO, Daniel Amos, in 1990. Under the newly appointed CEO, Aflac become a Fortune 100 best company to work in the United States in 2000. Overall the company had taken shape beautifully in its history. It was the largest provider of renewable insurance in the US and it was also the largest provider in Japan (History 2012). So what is the problem? Daniel Amos wanted to change one thing about his company and that was brand
Aflac Duck Campaign
Introduction One company which has had success over the last decade is American Family Life Assurance Company or more commonly known as Aflac (duck voice). Historically, Aflac was a pretty successful company but they were still missing that one piece to make them recognizable. That one thing the company needed was a face and they found it when they launched their Aflac Duck Campaign. In this paper, the Duck campaign strategy will be discussed along with the history of Aflac, target audience and competition of Aflac, and the successful outcome of the campaign.
History
The American Family Life Assurance Company was founded in Columbus, Georgia by three brothers, John, Paul, and Bill Amos in 1955. Three years later, the company had their first big plan which was developing a cancer expense policy. Several years afterward, Aflac expanded by adding numerous diverse policies to cover accidents, dental, disability, hospital care, and other health events. In the 1960s, Aflac thrived on making presentations to companies with large groups of employees. Today, the overwhelming majority (96%) of Aflac’s policies are bought at work through a payroll-deduction basis. Later in the 1970s, Aflac continued its success by expanding into the Japan market. Aflac was only the third American company to sell insurance in Japan. This has proved to very successful since today, Japan is about three-quarters (75%) of the company’s revenue. Aflac continued to do well through the 1980s and into the 1990s and named a new CEO, Daniel Amos, in 1990. Under the newly appointed CEO, Aflac become a Fortune 100 best company to work in the United States in 2000. Overall the company had taken shape beautifully in its history. It was the largest provider of renewable insurance in the US and it was also the largest provider in Japan (History 2012). So what is the problem? Daniel Amos wanted to change one thing about his company and that was brand
References: Sunset, B. (2008, January 28). The Aflac Duck Campaign. Retrieved from http://marketing-case- studies.blogspot.com/2008/01/aflac-duck-2000-campaign.html Amos, D. (2010). How I Did It: Aflac 's CEO Explains How He Fell For The Duck. Retrieved from http://www.internationalistmagazine.com/AflacsCEO.pdf Case Studies Kaplan Thaler. Retrieved from http://kaplanthaler.com/clients/case_studies Thaler, L., Thaler, R. BANG! Getting Your Message Heard in a Noisy World. Retrieved from http://www.thepowerofsmallbook.com/index.php/other Abbey, R. (2010). Encouraging Animal Advertisers to Pay for the Use of Animal Images: A Voluntary Certification Approach. Retrieved from http://sjalp.stanford.edu/pdfs/Abbey.pdf Elliott, S. (2009, April 21). Not Daffy or Donald, but Still Aflac’s Rising Star. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/business/media/22adco.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Afla c&st=cse (2012). Aflac 2012 Corporate Citizenship Report. Retrieved from http://www.aflac.com/us/en/docs/investors/CSRReport.pdf (2012). Aflac History. Retrieved from http://www.aflac.com/aboutaflac/corporateoverview/history.aspx (2004, September 20). Aflac Press Release. Retrieved from http://www.aflac.com/aboutaflac/pressroom/pressreleasestory.aspx?rid=616598 (2012). Aflac Homepage. Retrieved from http://www.aflac.com/aboutaflac/corporateoverview/missionandvalues.aspx