Release Date: Thursday, March 21, 2002

AFLAC CEO DANIEL AMOS TELLS DUCK TALES AT TERRY THIRD THURSDAY

ATLANTA, Ga. — AFLAC's roaring U.S. sales growth might not have occurred if CEO Daniel Amos had given in to advisors who told him in 1999 to ditch the duck and go with the pitchman everybody loves—Ray Romano.

"I remember calling on a friend of mine who's a CEO and I tried to explain to him what the duck was like. I realized he thought I was crazy," Amos told a group of Terry College of Business alumni and guests at the University of Georgia Alumni Club in Atlanta on Thursday.

Once the company decided it needed to do more advertising to boost consumer awareness of the AFLAC brand name, 40 different concepts were considered for the ad campaign, Amos said. The best commercials were tested in front of audiences to see how TV viewers would respond.

"We had a commercial that was brought to us with Ray Romano [star of the CBS sitcom 'Everybody Loves Raymond'], and he was with children in a playroom and they were playing with building blocks and at the end (the blocks) formed AFLAC," Amos said. The commercial scored 50 percent higher than any other commercial the company had ever tested.

The commercial featuring the frustrated duck, however, tested 150 percent higher. Amos, who had said all along he would go with whichever concept tested the best, now wondered how he would explain the decision.

"The question hit me: How in the world am I going to tell my board of directors that we're going to have a duck that quacks 'AFLAC'? The ultimate answer was I didn't tell the board," Amos said. He decided to go ahead with the production of the commercials so he could show the board how effective the ads were after the fact.

Kicking off on January 1, 2000, the AFLAC duck began creating a mass media buzz—even generating free publicity on "The Tonight Show" and popping up in syndicated comic strips.

The company's market research claims the ads have boosted AFLAC's name recognition in the U.S. from 2 percent in 1990 to 90 percent today. Accordingly, AFLAC sales jumped nearly 30 percent in the United States during 2000, and the growth trend continued in 2001.

"It's become a pop icon," Amos said. "It has truly branded our company in a way that has helped us to no end."

In addition to giving those at the breakfast the inside story on the ad campaign, Amos also showed TV commercials that AFLAC aired before and after the duck. He also previewed a new commercial that will feature the duck in a mechanic's shop. Amos said another TV spot pairing the duck and baseball great Yogi Berra would begin airing during baseball season.

Amos was named president of AFLAC in 1983 (the company was then known as American Family Life Assurance Company). He assumed the role of CEO in 1990. He received a business degree in risk management and insurance from UGA's Terry College of Business in 1973 and is a former chairman of the UGA Foundation Board of Trustees.

Amos was the featured speaker at the "Terry Third Thursday" Atlanta lecture series, held on the third Thursday of each month at the Atlanta Financial Center in Buckhead. The program is co-sponsored by UGA's Terry College of Business and the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

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