Röyksopp: Remind Me

TV Thursday explores the use of popular music for TV themes and as commercial music beds, and today is no exception. One of the more popular advertisers on American television is the GEICO Insurance Company. At any given time, GEICO will be running several different thematic ads. Currently, you might see the GEICO gecko, the “Unsolved Mysteries” parodies, and the ever popular caveman series.

Beginning in 2004, GEICO began upsetting sophisticated cavemen everywhere with the line “It’s so easy a caveman can do it.” The fourth GEICO caveman commercial aired in 2006 and had a jet-setting Cro-Magnon being offended at the ever present GEICO slogan while the technopop song “Remind Me” by Röyksopp is playing in the background.

Röyksopp had recorded the song in 2001 for their Melody A.M. album; however, a remix of the song was used for the commercial. I don’t know if it is just because I’ve heard the remix more frequently, but I prefer it to the original recording.

GEICO Commercial #4

In Norwegian, Röyksopp literally means “smoke mushroom” – a term for puff mushrooms. The band contains two keyboardists, Torbjørn Brundtland and Svein Berge, who both hail from Tromsø, Norway. On both the original recording and the remix, another Norwegian, Erlend Øye, provides the vocals.

Röyksopp’s Original Version

I do have one idea for the marketing folks at GEICO. I suggest that they create a cross-promotional ad where a caveman eats the gecko. I might be tempted even to switch to GEICO if they would air this commercial idea, as “It’s so easy a caveman can do it.”