In 2016, after more than a decade of making Progressive synonymous with Flo and discount car insurance, we launched a new campaign to introduce Progressive home insurance.

“Parentamorphosis” drove acquisition of more than 1 million home-and-auto bundled customers in year one. In 2020, to fuel campaign momentum and keep up with an evolving audience, we introduced Dr. Rick, Parenta-Life Coach. The Dr. Rick work became Progressive’s most-watched content of all time, launched our target audience’s most-loved character, and grew policies in force by triple digit percentages.

The “Parentamorphosis” campaign is built around an insight that’s driven the campaign since its inception in 2016, and a character (Dr. Rick), who’s become Progressive’s most well-liked character of all time.

It starts slow enough for new first-time homebuyers. First they guard the thermostat. And then they make their friends take their shoes off when they come over. Until finally, as they stare out the window judging their neighbor’s tacky lawn ornaments, it hits them. They’re experiencing Parentamorphosis. They’re becoming their mom and dad.

Dr. Rick is a Parenta-Life Coach. His very niche job is to help young people from turning into their parents when they buy a home. It’s a condition called “Parentamorphosis” and it has become his life’s work. Dr. Rick’s passion is rooted in personal experience. He, too, was a sufferer. But he made it through. And now he’s here to help people in the throes of the same disorder that once threatened to ruin his life.

Parental triggers are around every corner. In these films, we watch as Dr. Rick tries to save new homeowners from themselves by:

Encountering a celebrity in the wild.

Letting go of triggering household items.

A group outing visiting a trendy fast casual restaurant.

And finally, debunking that the fruit emoji often doesn’t really mean fruit.

These are just a few of Dr. Rick’s recent adventures and methods helping young homeowners unbecome their parents.

Progressive’s home insurance awareness and consideration relative to major competitors remained a challenge, lagging competitors who had been messaging home insurance for decades. Progressive trailed leading competitors by double digits in awareness and came up short on consideration metrics. All our major competitors were using the same “bundle and save” language across channels. Even with a strong insight, we had to get creative to avoid fading into the background.

Driving quotes is a primary goal for Progressive and during a time when the overall insurance market was unusually volatile, we were still striving to increase policies in force amongst their highest value customer segment, Young Homeowners (25-44). In addition to quotes, our second objective was to increase Progressive's relevance with this audience. And lastly, with every major insurer fighting and spending against the same customer base, we were looking for ways to beat the competition.

The Dr. Rick work continues to drive increased policies in force and continues to beat quoting metric norms. While the campaign has been in market, Progressive moved from the #4 auto insurer up to #1 and continues to battle for those #1 and #2 spots with their competitors (currently ranked at #2).

The Dr. Rick campaign not only converts millennials for homeowners’ insurance but has also become the second all-time most successful campaign for driving car insurance quotes.