Esurance Wants to See Other Women

Esurance is moving from the cartoon to the real world.

Starting today, its animated commercials featuring a perky go-getter named Erin are being replaced with human actors. Erin, whose "agent" guises ranged from Bollywood babe to Lara Croft-like adventurer, is now relegated to background mascot status on wall posters, desktops and computer screens in the spots' fictional Esurance corporate HQ.

The online insurer explains to the New York Times' Stuart Elliott that it's dumping Erin (in a manner of speaking) to woo other women (namely, female consumers), along with less digitally-savvy older consumers and the "married or partnered."

The spots also introduce a new tagline: “People when you want them. Technology when you don’t."

The language reinforces Esurance's new brand positioning, emphasizing that its customer support isn't only virtual, as was the theme of the more techie-skewing, Erin-centric spots, but also human (and similarly always on). 

“We’ve done quite a bit of research,” Esurance CMO John Swigart comments to the NYT, noting that consumers want “both sides, especially today’s consumers who have lived with the Internet for a long time now.”

Take a look back at a classic animated spot featuring Erin below.