Blog #5: Beauty Blogger Insurance

  Allstate has been providing insurance for families since 1931, to, “provide protection to help people achieve their hopes and dreams” (“Our Shared Purpose”), but has been producing advertisements to keep up with their expanding audience since the early 2000’s. Before their commercials were the comedy entertainment we see today, their commercials would have a serious tone that was dependent on the deep voice of Dennis Haysbert.  

 

In 2007, Haysbert would make his debut as the spokesperson of Allstate and for the next four years, he would earn the name “ The Allstate guy” for his recognizable monotone voice and his famous slogan “Are you in good hands”. Eventually the audience that grew up seeing Haysbert on their TV screens grew old of the refined, trustworthy character. To include the new and younger audience into the marketing campaign, Allstate replaced Dennis with Mayhem in 2010. Played by Dean Winters, Mayhem embodies a careless irresponsible teen that always seems to get into trouble but thanks to Allstate, he's able to make a safe recovery. Not only does the switch from serious to comedy bring in a bigger audience but Allstate's mayhem ads give the consumers a safe space to be able to relate to the careless character and think positively of their own careless mistakes. The ad “Beauty Blogger” uses an accident prone nonchalant character and teenage slang to remind the audience that with the help of insurance, accidents can be handled with responsibility and there's no need to worry.

“Mayhem Commercials.” YouTube, YouTube Accessed 19 Oct. 2023.

Beauty Blogger

“Beauty Blogger | Allstate Mayhem.” YouTube, YouTube, 12 Sept. 2019, 

The ad “Beauty Blogger” uses an accident prone nonchalant character and teenage slang to remind the audience that with the help of insurance, accidents can be handled with responsibility and there's no need to worry.  

     First think Mayhem wants us to know is hes an expiring beauty blogger and if you looked around his room, you could see that, that could be true. A beauty blogger is an actor who films videos and advertisements to promote beauty cosmetics. Beauty blogs have a large teen geographic who are mostly young female viewers, “Sixty-five percent of teen girls turn to YouTube to learn how to create a new style or use a beauty product and  56% follow beauty brands on social media” (D'Adamo) The pink room he’s in has the set design of a teenage girl. Typically, the color pink is associated with the female gender which can be the same reasoning here. Lamps are stationed on each desk, there’s three in total, jewelry holders hanging from the wall, makeup brushes on the table, perfume bottles and white curtains that can signify the innocence of a child, all accurately relatable to a teenage girl. Mayhem, on the other hand, is wearing a black suit while holding a hair curler against his head which contrasts the stationary he’s in. I believe this is where the comical aspect comes in because clearly Maverick isn’t a teenager despite what he says and how he is acting. Then he explains his reasoning. Getting a ton of likes on his makeup video is cool but leaving a burning hair curler on a towel is a “thumbs down emoji”. Emoticons are used mostly by the younger generation to empathize a reaction to a text but in this ad, Mayhem uses it in a sentence to show a negative connotation to leaving that hair curler unsupervised. Then he says, “if you have the wrong house insurance, paying for this i gonna be a problem”. I think it's important to point out that he doesn’t say not having house insurance is bad but having the wrong one is. This is why I believe that the sole purpose of the Allstate campaign is to get the consumer to buy Allstate insurance above all else because of the way the script was worded. Lastly, Mayhem tells the audience to get Allstate and be better protected for mayhem and steps away as the towel catches on fire. Which brings us back to why I said Mayhem is an accident prone nonchalant character because despite warning the audience to be careful, he continues to do things that are dangerous. For example in his commercial, Tailgator, Mayhem consistently bumps his car into the one in front of him which then ultimately results in a car accident. This brings us to the company’s purpose for this commercial. 

Allstate’s sole purpose of this ad is to cater to a younger audience to get them interested in insurance. Allstate’s goal is to keep families protected including young adults. In a study done by auto insurance, it is statistically proven that “the deadliest age group on the road are drivers aged 25 – 34, followed by teens and young drivers aged 20 – 24….this age group compromises 18.8% of all fatal accidents” (“What age group has the most fatal crashes?”). With the increasing rates of car accidents among the younger generation, this is the best time to push out advertisements catering to that demographic. The reasoning behind using a character like mayhem, which is to cater to a younger audience, is to make mayhem relatable. If the consumer can relate to mayhem and maybe even feel less guilty for such silly mistakes then maybe this would encourage buyers to buy Allstate insurance. 

 Allstate Mayhem “beauty blogger” encourages teenagers to consider getting insurance and protecting their valuables or else they’ll end up accident prone like mayhem.

Curious Adolescent, signing off

Work Cited

D'Adamo, Ann. ““Am I Instaworthy?” Social Spurs Beauty Spend Among Teens | WMI.” Stella Rising, 24 March 2017, https://www.stellarising.com/blog/am-i-instaworthy-social-spurs-beauty-spend-among-teens-wmi. Accessed 19 October 2023.

“Our Shared Purpose.” Allstate Corporation, https://www.allstatecorporation.com/about/our-shared-purpose.aspx. Accessed 18 October 2023.

“What age group has the most fatal crashes?” AutoInsurance.org, 13 October 2023, https://www.autoinsurance.org/age-groups-fatal-crashes/. Accessed 19 October 2023.