This is the opening line of a real radio commercial airing in Los Angeles.
With each passing day, my Bad Commercial Generator seems less and less like satire.
The advertiser who paid for such incompetent copywriting, by the way, is Slater Brothers Markets.
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Wow. Reminds of a TV ad that was running not too long ago talking about their free “full color” brochure. They say that “each page is packed with powerful information” that you aren’t supposed to know about it.
Copy like that makes my teeth curl and my hair hurt.
Sorry Dan, I think your bad commercial generator actually could have spit out a better script than that. Maybe it’s time you start selling it to the agencies? HAHAHAHA
Where’s the rest of the spot?
America has different ways of selling food then Canada. It seems to have some small and large regional chains where as up here, it’s two national chains who take up the country with some small independents thrown in for the mix.
It seems Stater Bros is a large regional chain. In fact, on their website, “Today, Stater Bros. is the largest privately owned Supermarket Chain in Southern California, with annual sales in 2009 of $3.77 billion.”
If they are that big, if they’re not doing what those large national chains do up here on radio, which is largely doing price point weekly specials and informing the public of special sales (“tax free” days are really big up here, not to mention BOGO) why advertise on radio? Competition getting you nervous? I wouldn’t think so with that statement mentioned above.
Maybe just throwing their money into a larger campaign and radio is an add on? Makes you wonder.
I’d love to see someone, preferably an ad agency that can give quantitative proof that using cliches in ad copy actually works.
You’d think they do as god knows there’s enough spots out there with them in it. or hey, maybe everyone has run out of fresh ideas like hollywood, that cliche’s are new again?
If I end up in LA, I’ll now know where to hang out to watch for stars….LOL!
Blecch…
Way to besmirch the name, Slater Brothers (no relation).
Well, I guess I won’t be frequenting this client. I was hoping they had friendly, courteous personnel.
Wow – for a second there I thought I was listening to a local commercial here in Duluth, the only difference is LA actually pays union scale . This is either a very constipated ‘model’ of creativity, or the agency is grooming itself to become the new \Walmart\ . Maybe the client just couldn’t afford the real copy…or LA has run out of real writers. Suffice to say, both newcomers fresh with an ‘AD Degree’ & pros alike will cringe over the time & money they’ve invested in this career corner. Nothing like flushing it all down the drain.
Are there Undercover Account Executives out there that really appreciate copy?
I waited in a line of two people for over 5 minutes at a Farmer Boys
Hamburger place in Southern California..I was going to just get a gift card…nope, no smiles on anyone’s face till the guy finally walked over and I read on a small sticker on his one cash register “we deliver smiles”
… I liked the food and that is why I bought the gift card anyway. The customer service was not good, I should have called him on having NO SMILES!
Can we do another commercial contest Dan …have you come across any good material?
That was the opening line?! It’s forgettable as ANY line in the commercial, but to START a commercial that way…..and this is in market #2? (That’s right, isn’t it? L.A. is market #2 and not #282 or something like that?)
Y’know Dan, I think I WILL start using your Bad Commercial Generator…..if I’m ever up for a copywriting gig in L.A. and need to submit some writing samples.
And Scott, you won’t be able to find any ad agency that can show quantitative proof that using cliches in ad copy actually works. Oh, they may say that it can work given enough time…kind of like how using a steak knife to chop down an oak tree may work given enough time. 🙂
“And Scott, you won’t be able to find any ad agency that can show quantitative proof that using cliches in ad copy actually works. Oh, they may say that it can work given enough time…kind of like how using a steak knife to chop down an oak tree may work given enough time.”
Of course you won’t.
What’s the point? Ad agencies are there to keep the client happy and take their money. Period.
Few things can also be properly measured in the brick and mortar world of retail until actual sales take place. You can get floor traffic, which in a lot of cases is what the spot is suppose to do, but that doesn’t translate to sales.
You also have industry people too close to the industry really not being objective enough from a listeners point of view to really comprehend if cliches actually work because, unlike the listener, they have the “been there done that, god that’s really tired” type of mentality. The end listener doesn’t necessarily think that way.
Which makes me think…..maybe a focus group or some sort of research should be conducted to maybe get some insight on what the man/woman on the street thinks about cliche’s.
Sure, there terrible, but my way of thinking says they’re more often then not, the easiest way to get a point across in a tight amount of time. The real trick is to use them in a interesting, creative way to get your point across, and all too often that doesn’t happen.
As a veteran of the LA market, I can guarantee you that (a) LA frequently does not pay scale, and (b) there’s just as much lousy advertising coming out of that market per capita as anywhere else. I’d hazard a guess that there’s better local… advertising coming out of smaller markets. But despite the anemic creative, Stater Brothers does one thing so many other advertisers won’t: they commit. While I couldn’t tell you what they stand for, I can certainly tell you who they are. Commitment to half-baked advertising can be far better than a half-baked commitment to excellent advertising. It’s too bad they can’t get the most bang for their buck. I suspect they’re stuck in the supermarket mindset of advertising special deals and nothing else. And as a Fortune 500 company and the single largest privately owned supermarket chain in SoCal, with almost $3.8 billion in sales annually, their commitment to lousy advertising is just one component of a machine where someone must be doing something else right. If no amount of good advertising can compensate for a lousy business model, then perhaps the reverse is true. All this to say–it’s amazing how much an otherwise competent company’s advertising can suck out loud.