Mayhem: Allstate Insurance’s Humor-laced Fearmobile

Steve Hager June 2018

Written for Communication 451 Communication & Emotion, The University of Arizona, Tucson. AZ, Spring 2018

Mayhem is an Allstate Insurance Company advertising campaign that has spanned over two dozen commercials on various media since 2010 (Burns, 2014). The advertisement campaign uses the same troupe each time: Mayhem (played by Dean Winters) identifies and portrays a seemingly benign activity. Then a humorous (but believable) accident happens to a car or house as a result of that activity. Mayhem then warns the audience that “cut rate” or “15-minute” insurance companies may not cover the portrayed accident, but, Allstate will. The advertisement implies that the audience should switch to Allstate to protect themselves against Mayhem. This paper will focus on the “Lost Phone Commercial” where Mayhem manifests itself as a phone that has fallen underneath a car seat. This causes the driver to take their eyes off of the road, resulting in a car crash (Allstate Insurance, 2015).

Mayhem ads appeal to the audience’s fear of the unknown by using humor as a vehicle to pass the message. The message motivates the audience to seek Allstate’s insurance because it portrayed as the only insurance that can protect against the inconceivable yet possible. Mayhem implies that the viewer will not be covered by Allstates competition and that if they do choose another insurance company, expect the worst. The use of fear in this manner can be connected to Witte’s Extended Parallel Processing Model (Floyd, 2018). The advertisement places the viewer in a hypothetical situation that is plausible. Nearly everyone in the target audience has a cell phone and a vehicle and the susceptibility message component is satisfied as it can happen to anyone. Severity in the ad is padded with humor. Getting into a car crash is a pretty major life event and having to worry about the costs resulting from the crash is equally severe. The advertisement cushions this event by having Winters deadpan a vibrating phone underneath a carseat.

Response efficacy again uses humor to lead the audience to believe Allstate is a viable solution and that their insurance will work. Arguably, by using humor to positively reappraise a car crash in a funny light, it creates a sense of trust with the audience (Shiota & Kalat, 2018, p. 454-455). Allstate is gaining audience trust and then asserting they are the only solution to mayhem. The commercial concludes with a deep voiced narrator asking the audience “are you in good hands” which also garners response efficacy as deep voices are associated with sophistication and appeal (Knapp, Hall, & Horgan, 2014, p. 332-334).

While the narrator is concluding then commercial, Allstate’s phone number and website are displayed on then screen. This fulfills self-efficacy of Witte’s model as people with cars probably have access to a phone or the internet to seek out Allstate’s insurance. These message components cause the audience to act by seeking out Allstate car insurance.

The Mayhem ad is effective at encouraging fear in the audience. This is due in part to using a relatable situation to create fear. The target audience has probably found themselves in a similar situation. Moreover, the ad makes people with competitive car insurance to question their customer loyalty to their current insurance company with fear as well. The ad does a good job of placing the “would my insurance cover me” question in the audience’s thoughts. Winter’s use of a suit bolsters fear portrayed to the audience as well. Well-dressed individuals are correlated to gaining trust with people they are communicating with (Knapp, Hall, & Horgan, 2014, p. 186-188). The placement of fear-inducing questions and good use of non-verbal communication, make the advertisement effective at invoking audience fear.

References

Allstate Insurance. (2015, March 15). Lost Phone Commercial | Allstate Mayhem [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l3xydnNy-c

Burns, H. (2014, August 11). Lisa Cochrane made Allstate's Mayhem campaign a trendy success - Bizwomen. Retrieved from https://www.bizjournals.com/bizwomen/news/profiles-strategies/2014/08/after-a-disturbing-start-this-woman-helped.html?page=all

Floyd, K. (2018). Emotional appeals [Panopto]. Retrieved from https://d2l.arizona.edu/d2l/le/content/628425/viewContent/5610642/View

Knapp, M. L., Hall, J. A., & Horgan, T. G. (2014). Nonverbal communication in human interaction. Boston, MA: Wadsworth.

Shiota, M. N., & Kalat, J. W. (2018). Chapter 15: Emotion regulation. In Emotion (3rd ed., pp. 450-455). New York, NY: Oxford.

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