Esurance hires marketing chief to challenge Geico

Allstate Corp. has hired a chief marketing officer for its Esurance division. Alan Gellman, who was a marketing executive at Wells Fargo & Co. for the past 10 years, will report to Esurance CEO Gary Tolman, Bloomberg reports. Allstate has ramped up advertising spending to woo customers from Geico and Progressive Corp. Allstate spent $887 million on ads last year, compared with $1.2 billion from Geico, according to data compiled by SNL Financial. Esurance has its work cut out for it. Geico’s commercials feature a wellknown gecko, a pig and a camel that can’t stop talking about hump day. Progressive has Flo.