<P> Many of the most prominent TV ad campaigns, such as the GEICO Gecko, the GEICO Cavemen, the Rhetorical Questions campaign featuring Mike McGlone, Maxwell the Pig, and the GEICO Hump Day Camel were developed by The Martin Agency . </P> <P> Animated advertisements were part of the early GEICO Direct ads as well as the "Dumb Things" campaign . The 15 - second long commercials, animated by Bill Plympton, featured a curious little man walking up to an object and eventually getting hurt due to his curiosity of the object . One of the commercials, for example, involved him finding a cannon and pressing a button, causing a resulting cannonball to fire out and stick to his face . The original saying in the commercial was "You could still save money on car insurance . Even if you made a few mistakes ."; later modified to "We all do dumb things . Paying too much for car insurance doesn't have to be one of them ." </P> <P> The company's ads sometimes focus on its reptilian mascot, The Gecko, an anthropomorphic Day Gecko created by The Martin Agency, modified in 2005 to a CGI character by Animation Director David Hulin and his team at Framestore . The gecko first appeared in 1999, during the Screen Actors Guild strike that prevented the use of live actors . The original commercial features the Gecko, voiced by actor Kelsey Grammer, who climbs onto a microphone on a podium and utters "This is my final plea: I am a gecko, not to be confused with GEICO, which could save you hundreds on car insurance . So, STOP CALLING ME!", before licking his eye . Later "wrong number" ads used Dave Kelly as the voice of the gecko . In the subsequent commercials with Jake Wood (which portray him as a representative of the company), the gecko speaks with a British Cockney accent, because it would be unexpected, according to Martin Agency's Steve Bassett . In 2010s commercials, the gecko's accent is more working - class, perhaps in an effort to further "humanize" him . "As computer animation got better and as we got to know the character better, we did a few things," says Steve Bassett, creative director at The Martin Agency . "We wanted to make him a little more guy - next - door . And he looks a lot more real than he's looked before ." Chelsea Clinton, daughter of former president Bill Clinton and then - Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, interviewed the Geico Gecko in April 2013 . He had since became GEICO's longest - running mascot, appearing in more than 150 commercials as of 2017 . </P> <P> Maxwell is an anthropomorphic talking pig and recurring character in GEICO advertisements . Maxwell debuted in an installment of the Rhetorical Questions campaign as the "little piggy who cried' wee wee wee' all the way home" (referencing the famous nursery rhyme "This Little Piggy") being driven home by a friend's mother, squealing along the way . While Maxwell was originally intended as a one - time character, the popularity of his debut commercial resulted in him being spun off into his own series of commercials which usually feature him as a tech - savvy, informative pig who is most concerned with his GEICO - related objects . </P>

Who did the voice of the geico gecko in its tv debut