See you, Snoopy: why insurance co. is saying goodbye to cartoons
MetLife has said 鈥済ood grief鈥� to its beagle mascot and the rest of the Peanuts gang, ending a 31-year relationship with the world-famous cartoon characters.
The insurance giant announced on Thursday Snoopy will no longer be its mascot, as it rebrands itself with a new logo and tagline starting in 2017, and parts ways with most of its consumer-based life insurance in the United States.
MetLife seized in 1985 on the nostalgic appeal of Snoopy, Charlie, Linus, and Lucy when it started to use the characters in life insurance ads, business cards, and even blimps. But warm memories of the mischievous beagle and holidays spent watching Charlie Brown specials have dissipated from generation to generation, with the disappearance of Saturday-morning cartoons, and the rise of streaming services.
While animated characters like the Geico insurance gecko continue to be popular spokesmen, MetLife鈥檚 decision to fire Snoopy represents a shift in the demographic the insurer plans to market to as cartoons take on a different meaning for a younger generation.
鈥淭he people who grew up with Peanuts, who really feel that strong nostalgia, are not the majority of people MetLife is trying target,鈥� Breagin Riley, a marketing professor at Syracuse University鈥檚 Whitman School of Management, tells 海角大神 in a phone interview. 鈥淭he old way is just not working anymore for them.鈥�
The announcement comes after MetLife said earlier this year it would of its American life insurance business under the name Brighthouse Financial to existing shareholders, according to USA Today. Once it does, MetLife to US corporate clients, including life, dental, and other insurance to employers for their workers, in addition to annuities to pension plans, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The warm, approachable quality Snoopy brought to MetLife doesn鈥檛 fit into this rebranding, said Esther Lee, MetLife鈥檚 global chief marketing officer.
鈥淲e brought in Snoopy over 30 years ago to make our company during a time when insurance companies were seen as cold and distant. Snoopy helped drive our business and served an important role at the time,鈥� said Ms. Lee, in an official statement about the decision.
鈥淲e have great respect for these iconic characters,鈥� continued Ms. Lee, about Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts. 鈥淗owever, as we focus on our future, it鈥檚 important that we associate our brand directly with the work we do and the partnership we have with our customers.鈥�
MetLife鈥檚 new logo will feature its name in a slightly different, black typeface, and be accompanied with a new blue and green 鈥淢鈥� symbol.
The company tagline, 鈥淢etLife. I can do this,鈥� will be replaced by 鈥淢etLife: Navigating life together,鈥� after . Many respondents said they feel overwhelmed by how quickly things change in today鈥檚 world, according to AdWeek magazine.
Snoopy, who first appeared in newsprint in 1950, was a positive addition to the MetLife brand, marketing experts have said.
鈥淭here aren鈥檛 many animated or cartoon characters , which is what makes it so valuable,鈥� James O鈥橰ourke, a management professor at University of Notre Dame, told Bloomberg in February. 鈥淧eople think Snoopy is totally cool, and it鈥檚 a pretty broad range of people.鈥�
Jacquelyn Thomas, a marketing professor at Southern Methodist University in Texas, adds that a cartoon mascot like Snoopy also doesn鈥檛 come with the risks a celebrity does. A fictional cartoon won鈥檛 create a public-relations nightmare because of a controversial comment or an arrest.
But Dr. Thomas tells the Monitor in a phone interview she recently realized Snoopy鈥檚 age when an 鈥淎ll鈥� laundry commercial that featured played on TV. Thomas asked her 10-year-old daughter if she knew what the ad referred to.
鈥淒o Millennials, as an example, relate to Snoopy? They probably don鈥檛,鈥� says Thomas.
And as she points out, Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts gang likely came at a heavy cost for MetLife. The insurer is estimated to have paid $12 to $15 million annually under its new contract to use Snoopy as its mascot, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Part of the dissipating nostalgia for Snoopy and the Peanuts is generational. Baby boomers would mark their calendars to watch the cartoon鈥檚 holiday specials. The characters also appeared in ads for Kodak, Ford, and General Mills cereals.
Now, though, there are countless cartoons to choose from, and many families do not expose their children to network TV, having swapped their cable boxes for Netflix or other streaming services accounts.
That doesn't mean, however, that the Peanuts gang has entirely lost its fan base. There is a new Peanuts TV series currently running on Cartoon Network's Boomerang. A successful Peanuts movie released just last year.聽 And there continue to be hundreds of Peanuts products around the world. In China and Taiwan, there are even Charlie Brown cafes, and Snoopy bakeries and retail shops.
[Editor's note: An earlier version of this article mistakenly reported that Peanuts TV specials are available on Netflix.]
