In the world of auto insurance advertising, Geico owns weird. Geico can claim ownership because it has spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the last several years inundating the airwaves with a barrage of TV commercials featuring its iconic gecko character doing all manner of strange things.

And how could we forget the cavemen that have added their own unique whiff of weirdness to Geico's advertising for quite a while now.

All of which is by way of suggesting it may not have been the smartest of moves for insurance behemoth Allstate to try to steal some of Geico's thunder in the realm of weird. But it appears Allstate is trying to do just that with a new campaign called "Mayhem" now breaking from Leo Burnett/Chicago. Allstate and Burnett have recruited New York-based actor Dean Winters, known for his roles in TV shows such as "Oz" and "30 Rock," to star in a series of TV commercials in which he personifies "mayhem" and all the disturbing things that word suggests.

This sort of personification is not a new concept in insurance advertising. Travelers actually did something like it a few years ago, but this Allstate effort comes off much darker and more menacing. And yes, weird, but not in the charmingly goofy style of much of the Geico advertising. Instead, this personification of mayhem played by Winters seems designed to scare us into thinking we need Allstate insurance to protect us from random accidents, such as a tree trunk falling on a car or a vehicle getting rear-ended.

The new work occasionally tries to go for humor: Winters is seen running in a pink headband with matching pink free weights -- all to suggest he's a hot female jogger distracting a driver who we see slams into a light pole. The scene registers as ugly more than it does as a stab at being funny.

Allstate marketing executives view this new mayhem-focused twist in the company's advertising as an attempt to go "edgier." Which, for those not in the know, is the new code word in advertising for work that aims to appeal to younger audiences. And for better or worse, younger audiences generally don't respond to subtlety in advertising as readily as their elders might. In any event, there's nothing particularly subtle about Winters' performance in these Allstate TV spots. He comes off as a rather crazed personification of mayhem -- with more of a touch of evil in his line readings than we would have liked.

Nobody likes advertising that tries to scare viewers. That is why most of the work featuring Allstate spokesman Dennis Haysbert works so well and reflects well on the Allstate brand. Haysbert projects fortitude and reassurance and makes us believe we would be in good hands at Allstate. In his mayhem mode, Winters comes off as weird and unsettling. And a snippet of Haysbert voiceover at the end of the spots isn't nearly enough to counteract Winters' largely negative vibe.

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