President Donald Trump got a pair of Aflac socks on Wednesday from a representative of the insurance company, and boasted that he has a family connection to its famous slogan-shouting duck.
‘Your chairman I know very well, and he’s done a fantastic job,’ Trump told Michael Porter, the company’s emissary to the Oval Office.
‘He actually, a long time ago, hired my wife to do a big commercial. You know that, right? An Aflac commercial. And I think it was a successful commercial, too,’ the president announced during an Oval Office event centered on tax reform.
Sure enough, Melania shot an Aflac ad in 2005 when the pair were newlyweds. She played the subject of a Frankenstein’s-monster experiment in which her brain is swapped with that of the duck mascot.
OF THE AD
First lady Melania Trump starred in one of the famous Aflac insurance commercials 13 years ago, President Donald Trump said Wednesday; this still from the ad shows a moment when a mad scientist swaps her brain with that of the company’s duck mascot
Michael Porter, a Columbus, Ga. employee of Aflac, gave Donald Trump a pair of company-branded socks on Wednesday, and the president responded by recalling the 2005 ad
At the end of the ad’s experiment, the duck wakes up speaking (in Melania’s voice) about the company’s supplemental insurance products
The mad scientist announces his intention at the top of the 30-second spot – shot in black-and-white – to ‘take the voice of this lovely woman and put it into this duck!’
‘Why?’ asks a half-toothy Igor figure.
‘To tell the world the benefits of Aflac – with sex appeal!’ the ascot-sporting crazy man answers.
After the pipe organ-accented transmogrification, the duck talks with Melania’s unmistakable Eastern European voice.
The socks Trump got in the Oval Office show a mosaic of profiles of Aflac’s duck mascot, along with the company logo
‘If you’re hurt and can’t work, Aflac can help pay your bills with cash,’ it says.
Seconds later Melania sits up and quacks, ‘AFLAC!’ – sounding like the famous duck.
The spot ends with a freaked-out Melania realizing that she also has the duck’s webbed feet.
The first lady used to include the ad in her modeling promotional materials.
In the ad, a Frankenstein-like mad scientist says he wants to market Aflac with ‘sex appeal’ – and Melania wakes up quacking the company slogan
On her now-defunct modeling website, Melania Trump once bragged about her Aflac gig
Her MelaniaTrump.com website, which disappeared during her husband’s presidential campaign, once read: ‘Melania has appeared in numerous television commercials, most recently for Aflac, in which she stars with one of America’s top icons, the Aflac duck.’
The insurance company’s rep told Trump on Wednesday that because of the recent Republican tax cuts, it had deposited an extra $500 in every employee’s 401(k) plan.
Aflac also raised the amount of retirement savings that the company will match dollar-for-dollar by an extra per cent.