In the mid-2000s, the insurance company Esurance began airing commercials featuring a special agent character named Erin Esurance. These ads showed her going through various
Mission: Impossible-esque situations, such as fighting various criminals and evil robots... all while explaining the benefits of Esurance's auto insurance.
Tropes in the Erin Esurance ads:
- Action Girl: Erin herself is a very action-oriented spy.
- The Artifact: The various aspects of the Erin Esurance ad campaign gradually went away as time went by, but Erin herself lasted for some time. First, the whole spy mission theme got dropped in favor of more traditional type ads, with Erin still there but as an office worker. Then, the final setting for the ads was a fictional Esurance office, where Erin was reduced to a poster in the halls.
- Badass Cape: Earlier ads have Erin wearing one, making her more of a superhero/vigilante.
- Badass Longcoat: Erin sometimes wear one.
- Baseball Episode: One of the ads took place at a baseball game. A song about saving money with Esurance to the tune of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" even played in it!
- Brainy Brunette: Erin in earlier ads, which changes to pink when she goes into action.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: When Esurance partnered with Allstate (and later getting absorbed by the latter), all references to their past advertisements, including Erin, were dropped.
- Expy: Erin was based on both Sidney from Alias and Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
- Green Aesop: One ad mentioned that Esurance can save you some "green" - for both the environment and your wallet.
- Hoist by Their Own Petard: One of the ads showed burglars trying to break into Erin's house. Erin's pet cat dumps some stuff onto the burglars, catching them off guard and causing their dynamite to blow up on them.
- Mascot: Erin was, of course, the mascot of Esurance, and she was a short-lived one at that.
- My Beloved Smother: One ad has Erin's mother calling her if she has Esurance, Erin assures her she does.
- New Job as the Plot Demands: A lot of the ads show Erin and Eric with different occupations while still working with Esurance, such as a racer and mechanic, reporter and cameraman, basketball player and referee, etc.
- Product as Superhero: Or in Erin's case, a secret agent.
- Satellite Love Interest: The dashing Eric's purpose seems to just be the fellow agent who has a crush on Erin.
- Scapegoat Ad: When Massachusetts changed its automotive insurance laws, Esurance was one of the companies that released an ad mocking the more recognizable mascots of the newly-arrived national firms. This Esurance commercial is about Erin debating an old man on...cartoon mascots.
- Shifted to CGI: The two ads made to promote the Star Trek reboot film.
- Shout-Out: Erin was inspired by Sydney Bristow from Alias.
- Spotlight-Stealing Squad: She is one for the insurance company she is a mascot for. One of the reasons they dropped her was because they realized people were searching for her more than their company.
- Spy Catsuit: Erin wears one of these.
- Stocking Filler: Erin wears fishnet stockings in the Paris ad.
- Terrible Trio: Some of the ads features Erin dealing with such a group. Each ad shows different members, some would include an eyepatch-wearing girl.
- Toon Transformation: Some of the later ads showed Erin transforming live-action people into cartoon characters. At least a couple shows a machine that does it.
- What Were They Selling Again?: You'd be forgiven for thinking this was an actual cartoon series if there wasn't the occasional reminder that these are ads for insurance. Take "Carbon Copy", for example, where it ends with Erin figuring out which Eric is not a clone by... asking what insurance he uses (Esurance, of course!). And that's the only thing that has to do with explicitly advertising insurance in that short.
