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With Gottfried Out, Aflac Looks for a New Voice

by Amar Toor on March 23, 2011 at 10:50 AM

aflac duckNow that Gilbert Gottfried has been axed from his job as the voice of the Aflac duck, the insurance company is scrambling to find a replacement -- and it's looking to Monster for help.

Aflac has already pulled all commercials featuring Gottfried, who was fired last week after posting a series of offensive jokes about Japan to his Twitter account. At first, the company considered running the same ads with a different voice, but ultimately decided to hold an open competition for the job.

Today, Aflac will begin airing an old commercial that was shot like a silent movie, with title cards replacing the duck's voice. At the end of the spot, though, the company has added an extra title card, which reads, "Be the next voice. Go to Aflac Duck on Facebook."

On Aflac's Facebook page, users can learn all about the competition, which is open to both professionals and amateurs, and will run through April 1st. Aflac put the campaign together with the help of Monster, which will help promote the competition on its own site, and across social media.

Ted Gilvar, Monster's chief global marketing officer in New York, told the New York Times that it was important for the two companies to be "incredibly nimble" in launching the campaign, in order to profit from the controversy surrounding Gottfried. "We approached Aflac when we heard of the situation with Gilbert Gottfried," Gilvar added. "We thought they might need some help in finding a new voice."

Tags: aflac, AflacDuck, commercial, duck, facebook, GilbertGottfried, insurance, monster, SocialNetworking, top, Web

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