Progressive Settles Dispute with the ‘What Really Happened Replay’

Progressive Insurance and creative agency Arnold Worldwide have been settling arguments this football season with the ‘Replay’ campaign. Launching on October 24 is the third spot of the campaign, titled simply ‘Cat’. With some excellent dry humour woven into the ad’s dialogue, the new entry into the series goes as follows. A couple wakes up and walks into the kitchen to find a cat licking the fruit bowl on their kitchen table. Why? Don’t ask them - they don’t even have a cat. Whose cat is it? And how did it get in? Well, someone must have left the door open last night, but how can they find out who the culprit was? Here comes Progressive to the rescue.

As the couple bickers over whether the sliding door was closed the night before, a challenge flag is thrown NFL-style onto the field (kitchen floor) and a Progressive referee enters the scene with the official replay. With the help of Progressive, their questions are finally answered as one of the partners – who swore he closed the door – is caught red-handed on camera leaving it open.  

Speaking about the campaign in an official statement, Sean McBride, CCO at Arnold says, “Every spot in this campaign features a totally absurd moment at the centre of it – a replay official inexplicably shuffles into these people’s kitchen and shows them playback of whatever they’ve been arguing about. It’s totally bananas.”

He adds, “And yet, somehow, a campaign with that nutso device at the centre of it manages to capture human interactions with real truth and insight. To me, that’s why the campaign has been successful so far. We’ve managed to capture portraits of human interactions that feel familiar and true, and plop an unexpected and unforgettable device square in the middle. So far, it's proving to be a pretty lethal combination.”

The previous spot in the series, titled ‘Scream,' features a father/son duo debating if the dad screamed when he saw a spider and the debut spot involves a couple arguing over who left the life jackets at home after arriving at their canoeing spot. You can view these equally silly and amusing entries here and here.