He made a New Year’s resolution to help keep people and property safe, but he broke it and now he’s back to ruin weddings. It’s Mayhem, the advertising character created by Leo Burnett Worldwide for Allstate Insurance, back to the small screen in two new ads, to advise viewers to get Allstate.
In one of the spots, Mayhem is 4-year-old ring bearer with the bad habit of swallowing stuff. He swallows the ring just before he was supposed to hand it over to the bride and groom, revealing he still won’t eat his broccolli. Mayhem – played by actor Dean Winter – also says that, “if you don’t have the right coverage, you could be paying for that price yourself,” and urges people to get an Allstate agent and be better protected from Mayhem like him.
The commercial ends with Mayhem throwing away the cushion that held the ring and leaving the ceremony, while on screen the #WeddingsAreMayhem hashtag appears.
The song playing in the background is the 1964 song “Chapel of Love” by the ’60s pop music girl group The Dixie Cups.
Dean Winters has been portraying Mayhem since June 2010, when the campaign was launched, rising, in February 2011, to third as most-recognized insurance advertising character, behind the Geico gecko and Flo from Progressive Insurance. He revealed he initially rejected the offer to front Allstate’s Mayhem ad campaign because he pursued an acting career so he wouldn’t have to sell insurance, but he reconsidered this decision after talking about it with his reps.