DUMB TOYOTA SPOT and/or BRILLIANT IRA GLASS PITCH

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• Chris Leavy February 1, 2009, 10:00 am

  I hadn’t heard the Ira Glass pitch until this morning, and I already knew it was brilliant. Why? Because a week ago, while driving to work with some friends, the discussion turned to NPR, and this pitch. Two of the guys had heard it and spoke of how guilty they felt for not yet pledging. One of the two already tithes $10/month automatically, and he STILL felt guilty! 😀

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• Mike Holmes February 1, 2009, 12:02 pm

  Once, roughly every time Halley’s Comet comes around, something with the ability to reach us where we live comes on the radio. I had an epiphany over it: it’s not just that Ira’s piece does its job so very well, it shows us just how banal nearly everything else on the air really is. Radio has abandoned true creativity in commercials (creative = it sells) for 100 mph delivery of produced phrase and sentence overlaps with every other sentence filtered, flanged, or ‘verbed for no logical reason other than to create a fake sense of urgency or excitement. All such devices do is make it harder to understand what’s being said. And it’s everywhere.

  Ira’s piece reintroduces us to the magnificent power of honesty, conversational tone, appropriate pacing, and most importantly, ideas that cut to the heart.

  I have recommitted myself to this power of the word, and to abandoning, even more than I have in the last several years, unnecessary components that sound snazzy but clutter the message.

  Ira, I am forever grateful.

  Mike Holmes

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• Ian Cunningham February 2, 2009, 7:12 am

  Funny, I just saw a promo on CNN about being #1 in web hits/streaming and thought, “do I really care?”

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• Anonymous February 2, 2009, 7:19 am

  If I was financially able to pledge, this would guilt me into to doing it. If I wasn’t financially able to pledge, this would gullt me into switching stations!

  Jan
  North Carolina

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• Michael February 2, 2009, 7:32 am

  Anyone that uses the word ‘cigarette’ in a radio spot with such flippancy is okay in my books.

  Candor and honesty; it’s almost sad that we take special note of these qualities in communication. Hat’s off to Ira for saying it like it is.

  Where do I send my check?

  –Mike

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• Kevin Zimmermann February 2, 2009, 7:44 am

  Toyota: Violation of a fundamental rule I learned in from Dan O’Day’s “Radio Advertising 101” course (I think that’s what it would be called if it were tought in academia):

  “The commercial is not about the advertiser; it’s about the listener”.

  This Toyota commercial is about Toyota, and it fails.

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• TheVoiceGuy February 2, 2009, 9:01 am

  I think the Ira Glass pitch IS brilliant, for reaching those people who constantly listen to public radio (or even for those who watch public TV) and don’t send a dime. For me, though, as one who doesn’t consume mass quantities of any public broadcasting – radio or TV – I was waiting for a tag at the end, “I’m Barock Obama and I approved this message.” In Milwaukee, we not only are taxed by the public stations, we don’t even get to vote on who makes the decisions as to how much they want to take from taxpayers. Maybe it’s different in other cities. Still, knowing I already pay for public broadcasting – without having any say in how much – I didn’t like being told to forget reason and give anyway. For as much as I use public broadcasting, I think I’m already paying my share. Then again, since I don’t listen or watch them much – and would have passed by the pledge break – for those who heard it, and listen a LOT, and don’t pledge… it was brilliant.

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