Yep, as it turns out, comedienne Stephanie Courtney played Marge in "Mad Men," and she also portrays the iconic Flo in Progressive Insurance ads. As Fast Company notes, Progressive Insurance was a relatively unknown company until 2008 when Flo came on to the scene exclaiming, "Wow! I say it louder ..." to a customer that's just bought a policy. "When she said that, we realized she really had something special, she was a character with real character," Progressive CMO Jeff Charney told the publication. "[Flo] was completely unplanned, but we saw and we jumped on it."
And it's a good thing they did, as Progressive's business "has more than doubled from $13.6 billion to nearly $30 billion today" as a result of Flo's significance in their commercial campaign.
But why is Flo so successful? "Flo humanizes insurance, something that can feel pretty impersonal," VCU Brandcenter professor Caley Cantrell told Fast Company. "Flo seems like the kind of person we would hope to get on the other end of the line to help us through an unpleasant situation."
