Burt Bacharach gets hit in the rear for GEICO

Burt Bacharach is an award-winning American pianist and composer. He is best known for his many pop hits from 1962-70, with lyrics written by Hal David, many of which were recorded by Dionne Warwick. As of 2006, Bacharach had written a total of 70 Top 40 hits in the US, and 52 Top 40 hits in the UK. In late 2006, Burt Bacharach appeared as the celebrity in a Geico auto insurance commercial, where he sings and plays the piano. He translates the customer’s story through song (“I was hit. ..in the rear!”).

There are also GEICO ads that feature stories from GEICO customers about situations in which Geico assisted them, but narrated by celebrities such as Charo, Burt Bacharach, Little Richard, Don LaFontaine, Peter Graves, and Verne Troyer. D.C. Douglas was also featured.

In a world where Don LaFontaine does a commercial for GEICO

Donald LaFontaine (born August 26, 1940 in Duluth, Minnesota), is a legendary voice actor famous for recording over 5,000 movie trailers, television commercials, network promotions, and video game trailers. Due to the sheer volume of trailer voiceovers LaFontaine has recorded, he has become identified with the phrase “In a world…”, which has been used in movie trailers so frequently that it has become a cliché. He has also parodied this cliché several times, more recently in a commercial for GEICO insurance.

Trailers or previews are film advertisements for films that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema, on whose screen they are shown. The term “trailer” comes from their having originally been shown at the end of a film programme.

[GEICO] commercials use a variety of fictional characters such as Speed Racer and Bill Dutchess as well as real people such as Tony Little and Don LaFontaine spoofing themselves.

GEICO Knight & the Pips

GEICO was founded by Leo Goodwin and his wife Lillian Goodwin in 1936 to market auto insurance directly to federal government employees and their families. Goodwin was inducted into the Insurance Hall of Fame due to the success of the company.

Gladys Knight & the Pips were an R&B/soul musical act from Atlanta, Georgia, active from 1953 to 1989. Best known for their string of hit singles from 1967 to 1975, including “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” (1967) and “Midnight Train to Georgia” (1973). The longest-lived incarnation of the act featured Gladys Knight on lead vocals, with The Pips, who included her brother Merald “Bubba” Knight and their cousins Edward Patten and William Guest, as backup singers. As of 2007, the Pips appeared in a commercial for auto insurance company Geico.

“It’s so easy to use GEICO.com, a caveman can do it.”

GEICO Cavemen are popular pitchmen in a series of well-received advertisements for the auto insurance company GEICO. In 2005, GEICO began an advertising campaign featuring Neanderthal cavemen in a modern setting. In these commercials a GEICO spokesman explains that using geico.com is “so easy a caveman could do it.” This slogan offends cavemen who are shown to still exist in modern society and are, in fact, quite urbane.

Stereotypes are ideas held about members of particular groups, based primarily on membership in that group. They may be positive or negative prejudicial, and may be used to justify certain discriminatory behaviors. Some people consider all stereotypes to be negative. Stereotypes are rarely completely accurate, based on some kernel of truth, or completely fabricated.

GEICO offends at the airport

The Government Employees Insurance Company, usually known by the acronym GEICO, is an American auto insurance company. GEICO is a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway and, as of 2006, provided coverage for more than 10 million motor cars, trucks and other motor vehicles owned by more than 7 million policy holders. GEICO writes private passenger automobile insurance in the District of Columbia and in all U.S. states except Massachusetts.

A caveman is a popular stylized characterization of how early humans or hominids may have looked and behaved. The term is sometimes used colloquially to refer to Neanderthals, Cro-Magnon, or Homo sapiens of the Paleolithic era.

Röyksopp are a Norwegian electronic music duo from Tromsø formed in 1998. The duo consists of Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland. Røyksopp is the Norwegian word for the class of mushrooms known as puffballs, but the band’s name substitutes ö for the second letter (in place of ø).