Progressive's Sticky-Notes Monster Makes a New Friend

Plays like a Saturday morning kids show from the '70s

Progressive’s hulking creature made of sticky notes is only scary on paper. It debuted a couple of years back, and returns this week, once again symbolizing the “to-dos”—bill paying, inventory, staffing—that bedevil small-business owners.

With Progressive, we’re told, at least they won’t have to worry about getting insurance quotes.

This time around, the beastie meets a lookalike friend and encounters a mechanical fortune-teller in an antiques shop.

Eventually, they’ll pick off those to-dos and sweep them all away.

“Every small business owner has a monster list,” says Sean McBride, CCO at Arnold Worldwide, which developed the campaign “This year, we introduced a second monster to showcase that owners aren’t alone in that daily grind.”

“They see themselves in this lovable menace. And they appreciate that Progressive makes at least one task quick and easy, so they can stay focused on the business they’ve built.”

Directed by Smuggler’s Björn Rühmann, the work scores by soft-selling its message with compelling campy visuals and costumes.

“The team has to physically write on thousands of Post-it notes—a mix of cloth notes and paper ones to avoid too many peeling off while filming,” agency GCD Donnell “Dojo” Johnson tells Muse. “Each round, we refresh the Post-its to make sure the costume stays in tip-top shape.”

“Also, given its need to actually stick Post-it notes everywhere, we had to create two different types of hands for the monster. One that has the ability to actually grab things and one that only slaps things on.”

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