Commercial Success: Actor David Hoffman Is Liberty Mutual’s Doug
The sudden success of the Liberty Mutual ad campaign featuring Doug and his emu sidekick was a shock for David Hoffman (CFA’99), who plays Doug
The sudden success of the Liberty Mutual ad campaign featuring Doug and his emu sidekick was a shock for David Hoffman (CFA’99), who plays Doug. Photo by Patrick Strattner
Commercial Success
As Liberty Mutual’s Doug, comedic actor David Hoffman cuts up opposite an emu in a now-iconic ad campaign
In 2018, David Hoffman (CFA’99) was eating lunch by himself on the set of his new ad campaign when it sunk in that his life would never be the same. He had just landed a promising role as Doug, a sometimes hapless insurance salesman with an emu as a sidekick, in a series of commercials for insurance giant Liberty Mutual. As Hoffman ate, a marketing executive for Liberty approached, her smile wide.
“I’ve just got to tell you we are loving everything you’re doing. We’re so happy,” he recalls her saying. “You’re going to be an icon, like Tony the Tiger.”
Six years later, Hoffman’s Doug is ubiquitous. You can’t turn on a game or stream an episode without hearing the commercials’ earworm jingle. The insurance guy’s yellow shirt, trademark mustache, and aviator sunglasses are plastered across billboards and web ads—with LiMu Emu, of course.
The actor, who’d once played Launcelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice at the College of Fine Arts, is now the face of a Fortune 100 insurance company, his performances responsible for millions of daily brand impressions.
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