How a park bench meeting led to Aflac’s $200 million mascot idea

Photo of Dan Amos (left) with the Aflac duck (center) and Catherine Hernandez-Blades, chief brand and communications officer of the company (Credit: Getty Images—Bloomberg)

Animals have long been used as mascots for our favorite brands and sports teams. Why? Because animals transcend different cultures and languages—and, simply put, people just love them. One of those most beloved and memorable (albeit sometimes annoying) animal mascots is the Aflac duck, whose story began in an unlikely place. 

“Our advertising agency was in Central Park sitting on a bench. And they heard ducks and they noticed it sounded like Aflac,” the insurance giant’s CEO Dan Amos told Fortune. “And so the quack, quack, Aflac became the idea. And that’s how we got in.”