They are the cash honeys of television commercials and are so familiar, that it’s almost as in the event that they are a part of the family.
Along with her perky, girl-next-door look, Jan from Toyota — A.K.A. Laurel Coppock — and the more zanily humorous Flo from Progressive — Stephanie Courtney — are America’s most visible TV business characters; and they’ve made a fortune for his or her corporate overlords.
If you happen to buy a Toyota or enroll for Progressive auto insurance, you would possibly well have been sold by watching Jan and Fly’s amiable smooth spiels; the 2 have each been pitching in a whole bunch, if not 1000’s, of 30-second spots for greater than a decade.
And their corporations have the rewards to indicate for it.
This month, Progressive shares soared 8 percent, after having written almost a whopping $6 billion price of premiums, making the stock the S&P 500’s top performer of the day.
Last November, it was named the country’s largest motor insurer, edging out State Farm for the primary time, based on Insurance Business Magazine.
Toyota Motor Company nearly doubled its operating profit from a yr ago, it revealed firstly of August, and became the world’s most profitable motor manufacturer, taking the title from Tesla for the primary time since 2021.
Toyota is forecasting a $21.14 billion annual profit, a great a part of it courtesy of those spots by Jan.
A Toyota insider tells The Post, “Toyota couldn’t do it without Jan on the market pitching for the corporate. She’s beloved by the general public and that sells cars — lots and a lot of cars.”
The 2 are not, in fact, the primary pitchwomen within the ad business, and follow in a protracted line that features the Sun-Maid Raisin girl, the Morton Salt under-the-umbrella girl, and Miss Chiquita, of the banana company.
But Flo and Jan are undoubtedly probably the most successful — with strangely overlapping careers.
Each Latest York-trained actress-comedians, they’ve each turn into millionaires persistently over hawking their sponsor’s products.
Flo was first on the scene.
In 2008, Ohio-headquartered Progressive was desperately in need of an identity. It turned to the Boston-headquartered promoting agency, Arnold Worldwide.
Madcap just like the Flo character it spawned, Arnold is an agency situated in an old Boston department store that boasts it “once dumped 1,200 body bags” outside a significant cigarette company’s headquarters – a brazen act, but one which resulted in greater than a “million people quitting smoking,” Arnold claims.
The corporate was founded by Arnold Rosoff, in 1946, who, in 1986, sold the shop to his employees – crossing “Mad Men” with Mad Magazine.
It brags that it holds the record for the “world’s largest beach ball,” sees itself like a cult “if cults were super chill and you could possibly leave at any time when you wanted,” and is committed to “diversity and inclusion” for everyone “but a–holes.”
It was that vibe that created the zany character of Flo — and aptly, the role was filled by a “Mad Men” actress, Courtney, now 53.
In that first ad, a fictional Progressive customer shouts, “Wow,” knocked out by the insurer’s many customer services.
Courtney makes her debut as Flo, a bubbly and beaming Progressive cashier in a sparkling white uniform, vintage hairstyle, and pinup heavy makeup that took two hours to place together, and is equally enthusiastic, declaring, “Wow! I say it louder…”
And, with those five unscripted words, a star was born.
A Progressive executive declared to Fast Company, “When she said that, we realized she really had something special, she was a personality with real character. We saw it and we jumped on it. It took us a few spots, but we began to maneuver the give attention to her.”
The Boston Herald called her “the business break’s latest sweetheart,” and Promoting Age referred to her as “a weirdly sincere, post-modern Josephine the Plumber” — the favored business mascot for Comet cleanser within the late Sixties, played by a Thirties child star, Jane Withers.
Born in Stony Point, in Rockland County, NY in February 1970, Courtney graduated with a level in English from Binghamton University and studied acting on the Manhattan’s Neighborhood Playhouse.
She moved to Los Angeles, becoming a member of the sketch comedy group The Groundlings where she met her husband, the theater’s lighting director; Courtney has compared the “at all times on” Flo to one among her improv characters.
Along along with her primary job pitching Progressive she’s had recurring roles in such TV series as “The Goldbergs.”
Flo’s success prompted Toyota to search for its own female mascot 4 years later, “Toyota Jan” was created by its ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi.
Courtney auditioned for the role — meaning Flo could have turn into Jan — but it surely went to Coppock.
The 2 have uncannily similar careers: Coppock had also been a member of the Groundlings, in L.A., and she had also studied acting in Latest York, on the Circle within the Square Theater School.
She secured small acting parts and behind-the-scenes gigs before being picked to play Jan from 500 actresses who were auditioned.
Virtually overnight, sassy and charming Toyota Jan became an icon, along with her warm smile and trademark red dress.
Coppock mostly plays a receptionist at a fictional, and bustling, Toyota dealership where she pitches the latest models and deals.
In the course of the automaker’s Toyotathon sales campaigns, it seems she’s seen in her TV spots virtually across the clock.
Toyota has one among the most important ad budgets in the auto industry – and Toyota Jan is its centerpiece.
When Coppock, now 46, became pregnant along with her first child in 2014, and her second in 2018 – she’s married to TV author and show creator Bobby Mort – Toyota and its ad agency, Saatchi & Saatchi produced its latest commercials to incorporate the babies’ arrivals.
She has shared her pregnancy experiences on her online brainchild, The BreakWomb, a preferred YouTube channel some 8 years ago, where she and two other moms discussed things like their favorite children’s book, including one called, “Go the F**k to Sleep.”
In recent times, nevertheless, Flo and Jan have moved apart as characters, with Flo spawning a cinematic universe.
She now has her squad: Jamie, Alan, Imani, Mara, and Rodney, and their spin-off commercials which include Mara’s “parents,” not to say untold numbers of Halloween partiers who exit dressed as her.
And he or she has storylines: In 2022, Flo was romantically pursued by Jon Hamm, in an odd twist on Courtney being in “Mad Men.”
As The Latest York Times once identified, Flo “has turn into one of the popular ad characters in a category chockablock with them.”
Progressive’s Flo is taken into account one of the famous women’s brand mascots, ADWEEK has observed. Even pets have been dressed to match, a fact which Progressive is proud to share online.
The success of Flo and Jan has inevitably spawned imitators. Liberty Mutual has zany humor with LiMu Emu and Doug (played by David Hoffman), Verizon adopted “SNL’s” Kate McKinnon for its own pitches, and AT&T hired Milana Vayntrub as Lily.
None have been quite as successful as Flo or Jan. Or as trusted.
When Covid struck in 2020 and auto sales, including Toyota’s, were plunged into crisis, the automaker and its agency decided to feature its signature character, Jan, proclaiming that Toyota was open for business and service “on your peace of mind.”
The ads showed Jan in a plain setting, but with a Toyota coffee mug in front of her, and along with her reminding viewers, “We’re here for you.”
As Ed Laukes, group V.P. of Toyota marketing said on the time, Jan was used for the spots because “she’s the trusted face of Toyota for fast recognizability.”
Sarcastically, Jan says she doesn’t get recognized much in public. “Most times people think I’m someone they went to high school with.”