A devious gopher, who’s a spitting image of Bill Murray’s nemesis in 1980’s Caddyshack, swipes an engagement ring that a golfer leaves unattended and dives underground to surprise his adorable red-bow-wearing girlfriend with a marriage proposal using the stolen solitaire.
That crazy scenario is the theme of a TV commercial promoting Farmers Insurance, a company whose agents “know a thing or two because we’ve seen a thing or two.”
According to the company, the “Romantic Rodent” commercial is based on an actual claim that Farmers covered for its customer when an engagement ring was lost at a golf course. In a creative twist, the ad offers a fanciful account of what became of the missing engagement ring. Farmers’ creative team pins the blame on a romantic rodent, who swiped the ring to propose to his love interest.
The ad opens with Farmers Insurance spokesman J.K. Simmons walking #7-ranked professional golfer Rickie Fowler through the insurance company’s Hall of Claims. The spokesman explains to the golf pro that his company has seen just about everything, so the company knows how to cover almost anything — “even a romantic rodent.”
“A romantic what?” asks a baffled Fowler.
At this point, the scene flashes to a golf course, where a female golfer has just placed her engagement ring in the cup holder of her golf cart.
Watching the scene from a nearby burrow is a clever gopher, who makes a mad dash for the ring when the golfer leaves the cart unattended to take her shot.
After snatching the ring, the thief dives head first back into his hole, scampers through a narrow tunnel and finally meets up with his girlfriend, who is preparing an acorn dinner in her rodent kitchen.
With Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo & Juliet Love Theme” playing in the background, she slowly turns to see him holding a stunning diamond solitaire ring.
She drops an acorn as he goes down on one knee to chirp his proposal. The surprised girlfriend holds her paws to her face in excitement.
The scene transitions back to Simmons, who states, “I’m a sucker for proposals.” On the wall of the company’s Hall of Claims is a plaque commemorating the Romantic Rodent claim, which is dated 4/26/14. On the plaque are two silver golf balls and a needlepoint depiction of the two gophers holding a diamond ring.
The commercial, which made its TV debut earlier this year during the Farmers Insurance Open, is part of the company’s “We Know From Experience” campaign. The company’s ad agency of record is Santa Monica-based RPA. The commercial has had more than 1,150 national airings. Farmers Insurance serves more than 10 million households with 19 million individual policies.
Check out the adorable commercial below…
Credits: Screen captures via YouTube.com.