Lucky Duck: Aflac Finds Its Voice in Dan McKeague

No more edgy comedians for Aflac.

After firing Gilbert Gottfried for tasteless tweets about the recent disaster in Japan and launching a nationwide search, Aflac today announced the new voice of its duck mascot — Dan McKeague, a 36-year-old classic rock radio station sales manager from Minneapolis, MN, who beat 12,500 contenders for the role.

His first Aflac spot (below) will debut, appropriately, during tonight's premiere of The Voice — a competition to find America's next great singer — on NBC.

According to Digitas, the agency behind the Aflac Duck campaign, McKeague found out about the competition on Twitter — and like more than 90% of the applicants, submitted his demo online instead of demonstrating his take on the Aflac quack in person at one of the six cities to host auditions.

"A talent search launched and primarily driven online was a natural fit to fill the role of the Duck," said Elliot Seaborn, SVP Marketing, Digitas. "The Duck has over 200,000 Facebook fans and an online community who are active, excited, and invested.  There was no question that we would launch online and that social would be the primary way to get people involved and find the right voice. The Duck is a legend and the turnout was phenomenal."