Ideological Criticism: Progressive.

http://www.youtube.com/progressive?feature=pyv#play/all

In Progressive's newest commercial for car insurance, a very helpful and energetic woman comes on to the screen and the first thing she says is, “Welcome to Progressive! How may I help you?” She makes a customer feel welcome in the white, store-esque background that portrays Progressive Auto Insurance. She brightly shows the woman around, and tells her about all of the great deals their company has to offer, such as the ability to choose your own kind of insurance, and the amount you pay for it. In this way, acting as a spokeswoman for the advertisement, she makes it very clear that she is there to help and that you have free reign over your money and what you do with it. I believe that through this commercial, it's creators had the intent of making it's viewers feel as though they had the ability to do whatever, or at least that is what they seem to want you to think. When the helpful woman [Flo] tells the customer all of these details, you can see the look of relief on the customer's face when she realizes she's in charge. Whether or not Progressive's guarantee IS truly guaranteed or not is beyond my knowledge, but I do know that the creators of this commercial used this bright and bouncy woman as their spokesperson, probably to make the viewer be more inclined to believing her words because she is happy and seems sure of her claims. They use an average, middle aged looking woman as the customer, which could relate to almost any member of the audience they are trying to capture and advertise to, because the average middle aged American owns a vehicle. When Flo asks how she can help, she seems to imply that her only wish is to serve customers and to give them what they want. Looking deeper into this energy she is emitting, I can easily see that Progressive's aim is to make you feel taken care of [because that is what an insurance company is for]. All around, the technique Flo helps administer in the commercial is that of letting the viewer feel relaxed knowing there is a lenient, cheap insurance company that is by their side and there for what they need.