Turn off the Tap on Flo Posted at 11/26/2010 04:40:00 PM 0 comments (+) By now, everyone knows Flo, Progressive’s customer service personality. She is always clad in her white outfit, and she is always ready to help a customer. She’s hardly a gecko, but she certainly has a presence.

Perhaps Progressive thinks that Flo is more palatable than she really is. The company recently featured Flo at a Mayfield Village, Ohio motorcycle insurance event. Customers lined up to get their photo with Flo. The only problem, other than Flo’s somewhat grating personality, was that it was a virtual customer service rep.

The bikers got to sit on a hog with a virtual Flo. Then they could choose a backdrop for their photo and upload the picture to their Facebook pages. This seems like a lot of time and money for what should be a very cheap advertising gimmick. Consider that Progressive actually spent money developing a fake Flo. That’s money that they got from their customers. Money that could have been spent, dare it be said, hiring a firm that could help them develop a much better fictional spokesperson.

Granted, Progressive, even though it is the largest provider of motorcycle insurance in the U.S., probably feels a bit outdone by the Geico gecko. That charming reptile beats all other insurance mascots easily. Don’t even mention the Aflac duck.

Instead of wasting money on Flo and her unfunny jabs at humor, Progressive should take a lesson from the gecko. That character, even though he is not human, has more personality than Flo. The commercials featuring him also have a much better time examining the difficulties that a gecko would have living in the human world as a mascot. When you stop and think about it, those are fairly brilliant commercials.

What does Flo have? So far, just the honor of riding motorcycles into the virtual distance with every wannabe biker in Ohio.