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MONDAY RADIO COMMERCIAL SMACKDOWN: Office Depot – Who The Hell Are They Talking To?

First, lend your ears to this radio commercial…..

Who is this guy? He sounds like a slightly mellowed screaming car dealer announcer.

Do you believe he actually knows anything at all about Office Depot? Or about back-to-school supplies?

Do you believe he’s talking to the children who are responding to his rhetorical questions?

Yes, he should be talking to the parents who actually purchase back-to-school supplies. But when children answer his questions, by default we must assume that’s whom he’s talking to.

And even if he were talking to parents: Is that how you talk to mothers and fathers about preparing their kids for a new school year?

The Opening Line of A Radio Commercial Is Your One Chance To Grab The Attention of the Targeted Listener.

In fact, it’s the most important line of the entire advertisement.

Is this really the single strongest opening they could come up with?

“Who has the best back-to-school event in the business?”

Finally, if you force yourself to listen you can discern that they’re talking about school supplies for children, right?

So why, oh why, do they go out of their way to say, “Office Depot is dedicated to helping businesses and kids succeed”?

What does “helping businesses succeed” have to do with buying school supplies for little Johnny or Janie?

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Emilio Pastrana September 5, 2011, 4:48 am

    Well, with the unemployment crisis really high these days I’m sure the Producers of the spot hired some rookie copywriter working for the minimum wage.

  • scott snailham September 5, 2011, 5:59 am

    Uh……you might want to change your open line…..it’s OFFICE Depot…..not Home Depot. I know the difference…..we have Home Depot in Canada, they sell home related stuff….Office Depot…not in Canada-we have Staples/Business Depot outlets….they sell school supplies and office stuff…..hmmmmmmm…….imagine if Staples branded themselves Business Depot in the US….that would be very confusing. Very close aren’t they?

    The spot is speaking to the parents with the $$$$ to spend on school supplies iand is sort of a Rah Rah rah let’s give the old school cheer type of feel. Heck we could use the hyper energy delivery, but we also have to consider we shouldn’t scare those people who might be driving down the highway when the spot comes on (even though over compressed commerical FM will keep audio levels in line) so we should get a guy who’s hyper but mellow at the same time. Throw in a few kid voices to remind the listener that, hey your buying all this stuff for your kids, and you’re all set.

    I think most spots like this get on the air because the competition is doing radio, so we should have something there to. Whether or not it it’s actually effective is secondary and icing on the cake if it is. It’s not something you can easily measure.

  • Dan O'Day September 5, 2011, 9:54 am

    @Scott:

    Oops.

    Now corrected, thanks.

  • Gavin September 5, 2011, 11:30 am

    It still amazes me that 60″ is a standard spot length in the US. The key points of the commercial could have easily been made in 30″ – or even 20″. The key point was the 3 items at very low prices at the end of the commercial – but by the time the commercial had got that far, I’d switched off.

  • Scott Larson September 6, 2011, 8:10 am

    If they would have just started with a laundry list of school supplies as a background track ,fading at about :03 into and under a FEMALE voice over touting the fact that Office Depot sells school supplies the entire spot could have been done in 30 seconds

  • Drew Mehrtens September 10, 2011, 11:06 pm

    And… with the wrong pause… “plus weekly specials you won’t believe.. this week only at Office Depot.”

    Also, in a world where calculators are a dime a dozen, why would ‘hard to find calculators’ be a big deal to me as a parent? That’s like hoping I’d get excited if someone told me they had hard-to-find pencils. I’m just fine with the ones I can normally find everywhere I look, thanks.

    Drew