Dr. Rick’s Travel Tips Fuel Progressive’s Paris-Themed Campaign

The plane lands in Paris, and you immediately point out the Eiffel Tower to your seatmates and anyone within earshot, after you’ve cheered the pilot’s flawless touchdown.

Dr. Rick is so disappointed in you.

“No clapping,” says the exasperated yet ever-patient character in a new Progressive Insurance ad. “It’s the end of a flight, not a Broadway show.”

But just as he’s done for the past four years, Dr. Rick is ready to save young homeowners from themselves—by that, he means from becoming their parents. This time, there’s a seasonal travel hook in the popular, ongoing campaign, which flirts with the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris without having any official ties to the Games.

Like other non-sponsor brands taking advantage of the upcoming global event, Progressive has chosen its words carefully. Ads in the series, launching today from longtime agency of record Arnold, refer to watching live sports and visiting Paris landmarks, with no mention of the Olympics. (That would run afoul of carefully guarded trademarks.)

Capturing the zeitgeist

The marketing move is central to Progressive’s mandate “to deliver more culturally and contextually relevant advertising,” Sade Balogun, senior business leader of brand experience, told ADWEEK. The Olympics represent “a moment on the cultural calendar to intercept” consumer attention while the Games are saturating mainstream media and popular consciousness.

Meanwhile, travel to Europe and elsewhere is booming. France alone is expected to see as many as 16 million visitors this summer, Balogun said, with Americans making up at least one-quarter of that group.

Dr. Rick trivia: Ads starring the self-described “parenta-life coach” have touched on travel in the past, but the current campaign is “a more full-throated effort tied to our evolving strategy,” Balogun said.

“Un-Becoming Your Parents in Paris” includes several firsts for the brand, including a partnership with travel guru Rick Steves for remixed audio tours of Paris; out-of-home ads in Los Angeles, New York, Miami and Atlanta airports; and a vending machine at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport stocked with copies of the book Dr. Rick Will See You Now.

Targeting diverse millennials

The campaign will get heavy social and digital media buys—with Dr. Rick popping up on sites such as Expedia and Tripadvisor to dispense his patented no-nonsense advice—as well as a hotline for Dr. Rick’s insight and tips. The brand is partnering with a handful of content creators—a “newer venture for us,” per Balogun—with an eye toward reaching a diverse millennial audience.

The hero spot, called “Glory Days,” cautions those watching live sports not to use that as an excuse to dredge up their high school track and field careers because “no one cares,” per Dr. Rick. 

Social-first ads in the series point out iconic landmarks in the City of Lights where people acting like their parents may be tempted to offer dull commentary. Seeing the Arc de Triomphe might inspire those folks to “feel inspired to talk about the efficiency of roundabouts,” Dr. Rick says. “Marvel in silence—you’re on vacation, not studying to be a civil engineer.”

Arnold’s team first cast Dr. Rick, played by actor Bill Glass, in a 2017 spot called “Group Session,” and it brought him back as a central character in 2020, joining Flo and others in Progressive’s ad pantheon.

Dr. Rick to the rescue

Since then, creatives have looked for places where “he fits naturally,” according to Sean McBride, chief creative officer at Arnold, meeting the brand’s brief to engage with consumers where they’re spending time with the aim of boosting brand affinity and consideration.

Travel makes sense as a backdrop, whether it revolves around the Olympics or not, because the activity is full of “trigger environments” where Dr. Rick’s wisdom can come in handy, McBride said.

“It would be easy to spend time thinking about where Dr. Rick should go next in his journey,” McBride told ADWEEK. “But we have to go where the honest insight is, like how your mom or dad would respond to ordering at a restaurant like Sweetgreen. Travel is like that.”

While there are plenty of cliches about boomers’ behavior that could spawn Dr. Rick commercials, creatives try to avoid the low-hanging fruit.

“The idea has to be undeniably true,” McBride said, “but it has to surprise you because you’ve never heard it before.”