“Remember to honk when you drive by Vern Fonk.”
If you live in Washington or Oregon you probably never thought you’d see that phrase here. Because while Vern Fonk offers commercial insurance, it’s known for its bargain basement advertising targeting tough-to-insure drivers—mostly on cable, often at night.
Their brand is low budget in all ways. Go to their website and you’ll see something straight out of WebsitesThatSuck.com. Bad Photoshop, typos, usability issues—you name it, the site has it.
So how did a company with marketing that’s so bad end up in the venerated pages of The Responsible Marketing Blog?
Well, somewhere along the way, Vern Fonk realized that with their target audience, schlocky sells. And instead of trying to upgrade their brand, they decided to have some fun and just go for it. Every ad is over the top and totally homespun, and some are actually entertaining:
They are doing a number of things right:
- • The ads are highly creative (in a sophomoric way)
- • They’ve bought plenty of media to raise and maintain awareness, in the right places at the right times
- • The ads are driving word-of-mouth
- • By being cartoonish, they are avoiding some scrutiny – it’s clear they are just having fun
- • They haven’t tried to class-up their ads—that would actually be off-brand
They have dozens of ads on YouTube, and most have received thousands of views. The ad above had been viewed over 100,000 times and was even spoofed by Fox12 News in Oregon:
The lesson here is that it doesn’t always take a huge budget to create marketing that works. It takes an understanding of your target audience, a ton of creativity, and the nerve to try something others won’t.
After all, everyone in the market knows Vern Fonk. And that ain’t so bad, is it?
What do you think?
You forgot to mention their signage. When I lived off 405, I passed by one of their offices every night. The VERN FONK sign was huge and simple. Vern Fonk is forever etched into my memory.
You know a company lives a brand when the commercials are the focal point of the obituary. I remember when Mr. Fonk died, his daughter (and successor) assured “fans” of the commercials that they would continue, even after Mr. Fonk was gone.
And they did!
I hate that I think these are abso-shipoopy hilarious!
I have been using Fonk for years as an example of appealing to a market segment – – – and using that appeal to own the segment. Compare these ads to all the vanilla insurance ads that seem to blur together. Great positioning at work.
I think the spot is really funny. It reads like someone has studied the beats of shlocky advertising and is excellently satirizing it. They took advantage of their low production quality too.
Amazing how much bad a little humor can erase! Thanks for sharing – that’s hilarious!
This REALLY gets to something I wish more people would get in their strategic planning: different is WAY better than good, especially when it comes to advertising!
SHIPOOPI has now become a verb in my life.
What is the name of the guy that yell “shipoopi” I want to hire him for my commercials. thanks
Not sure about that actor, but sadly, the main Vern Fonk actor, Robert Thielke, passed away in August of 2015. Here’s an article from the Seattle Times: Vern Fonk pitchman, exec Robert Thielke, 50, dies