According to Ad Age, in 2022 the Progressive Corporation spent more than $2 billion on advertising in the United States, pouring more money into the effort than McDonald’s, Toyota or Coca-Cola. (The insurance industry’s total annual media-ad spending is estimated to be just shy of $11 billion — more than was spent by all the top beer brands combined.) It is an interminable folk tale about buying insurance, propelled by the charisma, or connoted soothing attentiveness, or gently grating peskiness, or something, of Flo, its central character. Flo debuted in 2008, working the checkout of an eldritch white store uncannily devoid of shadows or edges. (In early ads, the store’s shelves were lined with packages of insurance — cornflakes boxes and tomato cans covered with Progressive branding.)

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Persons: Progressive’s, Flo, ”, Harry Harlow’s, ” — Organizations: Progressive Corporation, Toyota Locations: United States