Time for another look at award winning radio commercials — spotlighting the good and the bad from the 2007 Radio Mercury Awards
This one was a finalist in the “Radio Station Produced” category.
“Food grows where water flows” — Great, now I’ll be hearing Edison Lighthouse in my head all week.
So, what do you suppose this commercial was intended to accomplish?
Well, the Call To Action is to visit their website if you happen to be hankerin’ “for information regarding the importance of adequate and dependable supplies of farm water.”
Exactly how many radio listeners do you estimate visited that website as a result of hearing this campaign? If you said “none,” you’re wrong.
I visited the website — after replaying the spot a couple of times to catch the actual URL — to reverse engineer this campaign.
The California Farm Water Coalition is a 501(c)(3) educational organization. In other words, one of those “special interest groups” we hear so much about. It attempts to influence both public opinion and politicians to agree with the Coalition’s point of view.
Unfortunately, often it’s more difficult to influence public opinion than it is to buy…I mean, “educate” elected officials. After all, you can’t promise lucrative consulting jobs to every voter who supports you.
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Pre-Emptive Notice: I don’t have an opinion about the California Farm Water Coalition, its members, its leadership, or its goals. This is a discourse about advertising, not about California water usage.
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The goal of this campaign appears to have been to enlist voters as Coalition supporters.
How? By motivating them to go to the Coalition’s website and become convinced that the Coalition represents Goodness, Fairness and Common Sense.
Except….
I’m the only listener who visited that website as a result of hearing this commercial.
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I suspect that even someone who is a clinical psychologist or a neurosurgeon, or both, would have difficulty trying to figure out the message that is hidden somewhere in this commercial. Another stellar example of why I will never enter another Mercury Awards contest in my life, and several other lives.
Did you day this spot won an award? OMG! It sounds like they used your “Bad Commercial Generator”. “Say, I think I’d like a glass of milk.” There are many problems inherent in this spot, but the most glaring is that the premise begins with a man who doesn’t seem to know where milk comes from. Any 2nd grader knows where milk comes from. Is this guy from another planet? And if the intention of the commercial is to drive the listener to the website, why cram that information in a “too-fast” tag? And of course, that begs the question, “What is so compelling about the website?” Man, I wish I could get the state of CA to write me a check for writing and producing such a lousy spot. Uh…then again, maybe not, since it would probably be an I.O.U. LOL!!
The commercial talks down to the audience, almost in a playful or joking way. The use of the non-conversational announcer is out of place where a child would have been more appropriate for the conversation, changing ‘Bob at work’ to ‘Billy at school’ and the like for continuity.
Otherwise, it’s a good spot and raises awareness that humans industries need to be ecologically responsible. I’m curious if this is in response to plans of an ecologically adverse company moving into the area of broadcast and proponents against it.
Peace,
M
This is a good example of what so !@#$ many ads do to introduce the topic: state the obvious. “Winter’s coming!” Really? “Christmas is just around the corner!” Gosh, I had no idea. This lame device only wastes precious airtime and is just about guaranteed to cause the listener’s mind to go somewhere else — not to mention it’s mildly insulting, i.e., Gee, I didn’t know it’s Fall and the temperature’s dropping and it’s time I started thinking about heating oil.
I can’t believe this ad got past the first listening in consideration for an award.