Ric Gonzalez submitted this commercial for the Critique-A-Spot-A-Thon at this year’s International Radio Creative & Production Summit.
Obviously, the client insisted that Ric include 10 tons of stuff…including the availability of “baked potatoes” Monday through Friday.
(Hmm. Unless “baked potatoes” is some sort of code that only patrons of “gentlemen’s clubs” would understand….)
My big problem with this spot is the story: It’s not the story of someone patronizing this “gentlemen’s club”; it’s the story of some idiot who calls 911 Emergency because he can’t find a good strip club.
And the only pictures we see are of the idiot caller and the 911 Operator — who just happens to sound like a radio announcer.
We could’ve moved from the intro to the real story much more quickly. To illustrate, I did a quick edit…
(By the way, in real conversations, people interrupt each other.)
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Dear Dan,
Invest in content, is one of your mantras. So what is happening with the picture here?
Taken from a picture database that requests you to pay one dollar per picture to use it on your website. However, the picture still has the “iStockphoto” watermark, which makes it obvious that even a single dollar hasn’t been paid to use it.
I have no intention in promoting iStockphoto, but I just don’t like the double standards. Invest in content also applies to websites!
Best regards,
Kenneth
It’s also another example of the ‘premise’ of the commercial having nothing to with the services of the client. You could use this premise for almost any type of businesses from restaurants to office supply stores to athletic clubs to even funerals. Which makes it a worthless premise.
Excellent fix…to the lame, time wasting beginning! Too bad there’s nothing you can do for the “announcer” problem. Why not use a female? The steak deal “sounds” good, though. But now I’m worried about the quality of the meat…er, the steak.
Didn’t originally have a comment, but then I scrolled down to where the captcha words are, and it said “REMOVES atingl”.
Removes a tingle.
I guess that’s appropriate for a blog post about a bad strip club commercial.
LOL
When you have two dozen of these places all bumping and grinding in every spot break, then a lot of the creative theory becomes academic discussion.
The bottom line is that this advertiser gets measurable results from the advertising. That’s the goal. They get results and they renew.
Artsy-fartsyness aside. In some markets it’s bars. In others it’s cars. They want a different spot every two weeks. Times a dozen of these places.
Radio, like television, is a commodity medium that uses packaged, plastic, superficiality masquerading as entertainment to hold people long enough to expose them to a sales message. Lets not pretend it is anything more.
Creative? Meh.
Results? Yes.
Renewed contract? Yes.
Job done.
If it generates sales and keeps the audience and the advertiser coming back for more, it’s good to go.