"Who is this?""It's Jake. Jake from State Farm."
Complete strangers are constantly asking Jake Delort what he's wearing at work. And when your name is Jake and you happen to work for State Farm, that's a question that just comes with the territory these days.
"[My boss], he always gets a good laugh because he'll hear me answer the phone and then there'll be a pause on the other end," said the 29-year-old Carol Stream, Ill., sales associate. "He'll just hear me say, 'Khakis,' and he'll just start laughing because he knows what the conversation is without even listening."
The insurance company's catchy and quotable ad first aired in 2011. In the spot, a man calls State Farm in the wee hours of the morning. His wife snatches the phone from him and drops the iconic line "What are you wearing, Jake from State Farm?" The ad has its own verified Twitter handle, @JakeStateFarm, which boasts nearly 30,000 Twitter followers.
The viral commercial undoubtedly has changed the lives of the approximately 130 men named Jake who also work at State Farm, from salesmen like Delort to tech support guys and beyond.
"She sounds hideous"
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Jake from State Farm doesn't actually sound hideous, despite the harried housewife's assertion in the commercial.
"I don't think I'm hideous," said Jake Keller, a 26-year-old State Farm team manager in Lincoln, Neb., laughing.
Unlike the character in the commercial, he also doesn't own a single pair of khakis; he purged his wardrobe of them.
"After that commercial, I definitely got rid of all of them because I was afraid the stereotype would be a little too much," he said. "I think I only had two pairs before then, and they didn't fit well so I figured maybe this is a sign."
Like other State Farm Jakes, Keller thinks the commercial is a good way to break the ice. "My girlfriend and I will go out and she'll introduce me as that just as a joke and it gets the conversation going, puts everyone at ease," he said.
He's not backing away from the job title either. "It hasn't crossed my mind to avoid the topic or avoid the stereotype," he said. "I just let it fly."
Ironically, Jake Keller met commercial Jake-an actual State Farm employee at the time of filming, according to the company-long before the commercial aired.
"We had met a few times," he said. "I think that person was in a different department and I wound up moving from Bloomington at the time out to California-so really limited interaction."
Their only resemblance? Dark hair, Keller said.
Sales, FTW
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Turns out, when your company inadvertently turns you into a cultural meme, it's actually acceptable to dress up as yourself for Halloween, according to State Farm salesman Jake Delort from Carol Stream, Ill.
"I basically came home from work and I was already dressed," he said. "I had a red shirt on and khakis and people were asking me, 'What are you for Halloween?' And I was like, 'I'm Jake from State Farm.'"
Customers, Delort said, are quick to crack a joke once they realize they're talking to a Jake from State Farm. His coworkers even have turned it into a game, setting an over/under on how many times he'll hear about it throughout the day.
"There has been a good number of times where people will call me and say, 'Oh someone who is a customer at your office said that they have Jake from State Farm and I didn't believe her so I called,'" he said. "It has lead to sales."
As a sales rep, it's an instant icebreaker with customers, Delort said. He even has a well-honed comeback.
"I'll just say, 'Do I sound hideous? Please don't tell me I sound hideous,'" he said. "I have fun with it."
And while Delort says he has embraced the Jake from State Farm persona, there are times when it can get old.
"There's been a couple of calls where I'll be like, 'OK, it's the end of the day. I'm spending ten minutes on the conversation talking about the commercial,'" he said. "It's very rarely where I'm annoyed by it."
A word of advice for Alexes who work at Target
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Few can relate to guys named Alex who work for Target like guys named Jake who work for State Farm.
Alex from Target was thrust into meme stardom after someone shared a picture of the 16-year-old cashier on Twitter just because she thought he was cute.
Jake Willock, a 31-year-old technical analyst from Pontiac, Ill., can't speak for all the Jakes from State Farm but he does have some advice for anyone named Alex who happens to work at Target.
"Take it with a smile and don't let it bother you," he said. "It's all in fun. If something goes viral and you have any sort of association to that, you're going to get pulled in."
Willock estimates he's heard the Jake-from-State-Farm jokes about 5 million times since the commercial first came out, he said.
His favorite interaction?
A couple of ladies called in and "they busted out 'Hey, Jake from State Farm, what are you wearing? Are you wearing khakis?'" he said. "I was actually like, 'I'm working from home today so I'm not wearing khakis.' And they were like, 'Oh you're in your underwear!'"
Willock said his own team has, for the most part, gotten all the jokes out of their system. Other State Farm teams? Not so much. "It's always the first thing that they say," he said.
Although Willock and his wife didn't do anything for Halloween this year, they already have an insurance-themed couple's costume planned for 2015.
"We may do it next year," he said. "Me going as Jake from State Farm and possibly her as Flo from Progressive Insurance-or something like that."