Aflac duck’s creators on their surprise return to the campaign

It was supposed to be a quick visit to talk to the brand team. Instead, when all was said and done, Tom Amico and Eric David found themselves behind the camera once again, shooting new commercials for Aflac with the company’s iconic duck—a character they’d invented a quarter-century before, but hadn’t worked on in well over a decade. “We’re in video village, looking at the duck on the monitor,” David told Ad Age. “It was a very surreal experience. I wanted to pinch myself. I was saying to myself, ‘Am I really here?’” Sign up for Ad Age newsletters From influencer marketing to agencies, get the latest news and analysis delivered to your inbox Click here It all started when Garth Knutson, Aflac’s chief marketing officer, invited the pair to talk about the duck at a “brand camp” for the company’s internal teams. (Amico and David had kept in touch with Dan Amos, Aflac’s long-tenured CEO, through the years.) Knutson figured his teams could learn a lot from Amico and David, who know the duck better than anyone. As part of the day’s activities, the Aflac employees—working in teams of five or six—were asked to pitch ideas for duck spots, to gauge how well they understood the character and how to use it a commercial. But then, the unexpected happened. One of the groups came up with an idea that took Amico and David by surprise. In fact, they wondered how they’d never had this particular idea in their 13 years on the business. Knutson was also impressed—so much so that he had the spot produced, and roped in Amico and David as freelance creative directors on it, working with Aflac’s agency of record, Dagger. The spot, featuring the duck playing charades, rolled out in January—the pair’s first new Aflac commercial in a dozen years. “I was saying to Eric, how did we never have that idea?” Amico said. “The duck is only allowed to say the one word, ‘Aflac,’ and he’s not even allowed to say that playing charades. We thought, how simple that is. And of course, it lends itself to the duck doing funny things that are like human things that a duck shouldn’t be doing.” “It was such a natural idea,” David said. “We had spoken to the team earlier about the character, and they really took that to heart and brought it to life with that idea.” Rewind: The most popular insurance ad characters After Amico and David agreed to help produce “Charades,” Knutson asked them if they had any other duck ideas floating around from the old days. They didn’t offhand—the pair felt somewhat tapped out after making 70-plus spots back in the day. But they did eventually come up with five or six more ideas—one of which, “Bowling,” has now also been produced. It broke earlier this month. To Amico and David, both ads are classic Aflac—anthropomorphizing the duck in ways that are both charming and amusing. “What we found over the years is the more human qualities we can give the duck, the more people relate to it,” David said. “Even the little actions he does in the bowling spot, like wiggling his tail to urge the ball to where it will hit the pins correctly—we all do that when we’re bowling.” The best and worst Super Bowl ads Ad Age reviews the Big Game commercials Click here They even brought back the campaign’s original director, Tom Routson at Framestore Pictures, to handle the new spots. “We were happy to do it because we felt these spots were as good as some of the better ones we’ve made,” said Amico. “And Tom [Routson] was happy to be back on board to get all our ducks in a row.” Echoes of the classics Working on the campaign again obviously brought back memories for Amico and David of classic Aflac ads they made together years ago. The campaign launched with “Park Bench” (below) in early 2000, which aired endlessly and was a staggering success—helping to boost Aflac’s business 27% by the end of that year. “We created the campaign in 1999 for a pitch,” Amico recalled. “The only criteria was whatever got the highest ASI score. The duck campaign scored three times higher than any insurance company had at the time.” For the next decade-plus, they cranked out spots. Among their favorites are the Yogi Berra spot from 2002, set in a barber shop where the Yankee great talks in riddles; a 2005 spot starring Melania Trump that was a takeoff on “Young Frankenstein”; and a synchronized swimming spot in 2004. Another classic was “Silent Film” (below) from 2006, which, much like “Charades,” revolved around the duck not saying its classic line. “We thought it was funny using a silent movie for a campaign that’s all about an audio mnemonic,” said David. For most of Amico and David’s initial run on the business, Gilbert Gottfried famously provided the voice of the duck—with his trademark shrill voice. “I grew up in Brooklyn and saw Gilbert in the comedy clubs growing up,” Amico recalled. “I had tried to use him in one or two other commercials. When we had this idea, we were like, ‘Oh my God, we’ve got to get Gilbert.’ For due diligence, we auditioned 2,000 people—and then wound up with Gilbert anyway.” Among other hilarious moments with Gottfried, David recalls recording the voiceover for “Synchronized Swimmers” in particular. “There’s a part where the duck is underwater saying ‘Aflac.’ So Gilbert is in the recording booth with a bottle of Poland Spring, pouring it down his throat, screaming ‘Aflac’ and getting water all over himself,” David said. “He was always in it 110%. We would have to press the button on the sound booth and tell him to stop because we were laughing so hard.” Ad Age Creativity Bookmark our section covering the best in brand creativity every day Read more here Amico and David aren’t sure whether they’ll do more Aflac spots in future, but say they’re happy to have been asked back—and are open to future opportunities. “We used to think, ‘Oh my God, we’re so over the duck.’ But like Al Pacino in ‘Godfather III,’ they keep pulling us back in,” Amico said. “Here we are. It’s sort of sweet to know things like this can still happen—getting the band back together.”

Aflac duck’s creators on their surprise return to the campaign

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