Hello, I'm Jeff Hullinger inside the Atlanta History Center. It was a small family insurance company based in Columbus, Georgia, looking for a way to distinguish themselves in a business that is often considered a bit boring, safe, and well, forgettable. At its helm was Daniel Amos, wanting to gain more brand recognition. He decided to buck tradition and do something unheard of at the time: use humor to grow his business. It was a gamble that would pay off big, using a little white duck to put the American Family Life Insurance Company, better known as Aflac, in the public conscience.
Does Columbus give you a different kind of definition, do you think, as a company?
I think, I hope people see us with a little more southern charm and opportunity to be closer to people, and that maybe they're a name, not a number, and that those things make a difference. So we certainly try to enhance that image as we move forward.
I saw a quote from you that said, 'I don't want on my tombstone the epitaph that says he was a great businessman.' That you have wanted to be more than that. Why is that important to you?
Well, I think it was the way I was raised. I was raised by a Christian family that's very interested in doing more to give back. And those things make a difference to me. And I think corporations that are good can do both.
For all of Dan Amos and his extraordinary Aflac business acumen, the center point will always be the duck. What's that? A worldwide behemoth of corporate identity, changing the company culture and the former staid business of insurance. A commercial idea led by the Pensacola-born and Georgia alum, Amos.
When I first showed up, they said, 'Now, and here's the way it goes. Think about this, okay, we made this commercial, and you've never seen an Aflac, we've made this commercial, and there's a duck in it, and it's gonna quack Aflac.' There's this blank look across people's faces. 'You're gonna do what?'
The gamble on the duck became one of the great stories in American business history. Within a week, had gotten so many people that wanted to buy a duck. We were inundated with calls of, 'How can we get one of those ducks?' After you've made the decision on the duck, just say ten. Are you in your mind? I mean, this is not where you want to take a couple...
Well, actually I did, but let me tell you this way, and this is the way it actually happened: is when they came back, we hired an agency. Actually, my wife was in charge of advertising, and she got a female advertising agency, Kaplan Thaler, and they developed the idea of the Aflac Duck. And they bet I wouldn't do it because you were, not only were you creating humor, but you were actually making fun of your name. And so I decided that what I would do is I'd test it, and if it worked, then we'd run with it, but if we didn't, we'd pull it immediately.
One national business writer wrote, 'Amos's unconventional and risky bet to test out an arguably annoying ad campaign involving a quacking duck not only made Aflac an international household name, but also changed the advertising game for insurers.' If you'll pardon the pun, the duck still has legs.
There you go. And it shows no sign of overexposure or people tiring.
And we're very careful to protect it. You know, we learn from Coke. They're very particular in their brand and what they do, and although it's totally different areas, the concept of what they like. For example, when we introduced the Aflac Duck, everybody wanted to go, everybody, me and our salespeople or our people, wanted to buy a duck outfit and wear it. No, can't wear, not allowed to wear any kind of outfits with ducks, nothing. All we have is that white Pekin duck and nothing else. And we have all these rules and regulations that we started 25 years ago. And they have played out because when people see a white duck today, they'll quack Aflac.
The ultimate gamble that paid off big.
I bet my entire career on the damn duck.
