Slashdot Mirror
Recycling TV Ads
Makarand writes "According to this article in the Denver Post a young entrepreneur has gotten into the business
of
recycling junked TV commercials
for clients with low budgets. TV ads cost anywhere between
$50,000 and $1 million and small businesses usually cannot afford an original production. The company,
Thought Equity, wipes off all references to the
earlier company and makes the junked commerical ready for reselling with a price tag less than
$10,000.
Also businesses that want their ads on the air as soon as possible are approaching the company
seeking recycled ads because producing original ads takes time."
wow! i wonder how they'll use that old meow mix commercial...
Investing forum
Makes you realize just how little the ads actually have to do with their products. The Simpsons episode with the artsy-fartsy commerical for Mr. Plow skewered this nicely.
"But I trust in the people's capacity for reflection, rage and rebellion." -Oscar Olivera
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
"Dude you're getting viagra."
looks like their almost slashdotted...
A young Denver entrepreneur is creating buzz in advertising circles by turning a profit from junked TV commercials.
Kevin Schaff recycles ads that cost anywhere from $50,000 to more than $1 million to produce, pitching them on the cheap to small businesses that can't afford the costly brainstorming, writing, filming, actors and editing that original productions require.
Schaff's company, Thought Equity, gives small companies access to top creative talent without the hefty price tag, but experts say the new ground Schaff is plowing is fraught with risk.
Thought Equity wipes the ads of all product and company references and resells them, typically for less than $10,000.
Schaff is young - 29 - but he's no rookie. He started his first ad agency as a 19-year-old University of Wyoming student looking for something to put on his resume.
Advertisement
Most agencies that send Schaff commercials insist their names never be used because their original clients paid dearly for the original work.
And the fact that Thought Equity is copying on the cheap raises legal questions, Advertising Age magazine editor Hoag Levins said.
But Schaff argues that he's serving a market that could otherwise only dream of TV - the most expensive and, in some cases, most prestigious place to sell your wares.
And he said he buys the rights to what he resells.
"We're finding a market of people with $5,000 to $8,000 (budgets) that nobody wants to take on," Schaff said.
Companies need to advertise on a local and regional basis, said Bart Cleveland, director of creativity for Sawyer Riley Compton, an Atlanta-based advertising firm.
Thought Equity "gives businesses a central place to go," Cleveland said. As for the lack of originality, he said, "In our business, there is nothing new truly. We look at what life is and think of new applications for it."
What differentiates Schaff's catalog of ads from typical stock footage and image companies is that Thought Equity sells an entire commercial, not just clips or pictures, and Schaff works across all industries, Cleveland said.
Sawyer Riley Compton, whose clients include Philips Electronics, Dow Chemical and the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co., has sent 12 ads to Thought Equity, including "Kung Fu," a humorous spot created for the Atlanta Ballet.
The ballet wanted to lure a younger audience. But some board members frowned on the ad, which shows two young slackers faking kung fu fighting in their living room, so the ad went straight into the drawer.
Two years later, a school for diesel auto repair and refinishing brought the spot back to life.
WyoTech, which has a campus in Laramie, bought exclusive rights to air the ad locally.
The Atlanta and Laramie versions are exactly the same, except for the ending.
Kung Fu opens with two guys slouched in front of the TV. A commercial comes on and they're up and doing their own Jackie Chan riff, in slow motion, complete with sound effects. It ends when one guy leaps over the other, lands on the coffee table, which crashes to the floor.
"Too much free time?" says the voice over. "Go see the ballet."
The new version: "Everyone has skills. Some earn money. Enroll at WyoTech."
"I actually think the ad is more appropriate for WyoTech than the Atlanta Ballet," Cleveland said.
He declined to discuss what money changed hands but said Sawyer Riley shared its take on the resale of Kung Fu with the Atlanta Ballet.
Thought Equity started recycling print ads two years ago. The firm has amassed a library of more than 6,000 ads, including more than 1,000 TV commercials, from 300 advertising firms and production companies nationwide, Schaff said.
Thought Equity has recycled 25 of those commercials across the country since launching the TV side of its business this fall.
To drum up fresh users for his ads, Schaff is going straight to where the need is
Come to your (chevy) store and get a new (chevy blazer) built (chevy) tough.
1) Make an ad with bunch of hot chics in bikinis.
2) Recycle this ad to sell anything from breakfast cereals to Pentium-4 chips
3) Profit !!
"Whoa, dude!"
This is your server running on Windows XP..
*cracks egg*
(Sorry.. too obvious?)
The Simpsons Kamp Krusty episode, when 'Mr Black' was dubbed over Krusty's voice in the video.
Krusty: (on TV) Hi Kids! Welcome to Kamp Krusty! Hoo huh hoo heh ha heh! I'll see you in a few weeks! Until then, I turn things over to my bestest buddy in the whole wide world, Mr. Black . I want you to treat Mr. Black with the same respect you would give me. Now here's Mr. Black
God, that's awful. Gives you some idea what to expect from "recycled advertising", if that's the jewel in their crown.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Want.
Desire.
Obsession.
From Calvin-Klein^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HBob's Discount Perfumatorium
Whatever it is I'm complaining about, I'm sure the Republicans did it. This is
Wouldn't a familiar scene and tune already associated with another product just be free advertising for the previous product? If I see that "I am Canadian" speech in commercials, I'll still think of Molson even if it's about commemerative coins from the mint.
When people use stock photos in ads they generally photoshop in other junk, but with tv commercials being so expensive I'm going to expect a lot of identical commercials with different names tacked on the end. After all, it's targeted to those with low budgets.
The article seems to talk about unused ads. However, I bet that there'd be companies that would be prepared to see an ad that actually aired reused overseas. A nice side effect of this would be that north americans might actually get to see some witty adverts if they had UK creatives working on them.
Then again, here's how I see it:
Buy (insert product here),
the best (slander rest of competition here),
we (possible guarantee here or fast announcer speaking).
(10 seconds of fillspace, for next recycle or plug ANOTHER product for 1/2 price).
Actual picture of product.
Profit.
Let's keep in mind that patents are in place to keep lawyers employed and keep them litigating. -CatGrep
I can just picture the Chihuahua go "Yo quiero MSN" or "You got Windows, right?"
...
Nah, that won't work
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
They probably are talking about campaigns that you've never seen, because they were never used.
I work at an advertising agency (I know, I know) and one of the most interesting things about it is to see how much money is wasted writing, editing, and producing ads that never see the light of day because the client thinks it's too edgy, or doesn't like blue carpet, or thinks the whole campaign is a bad idea because his sister told him so.
At the end of all this, there are hundreds of commercials that are brilliantly done and well-produced - that you've never, ever seen. Many are probably edgier and more interesting than anything you've ever seen as a television ad.
I'd be interested to see what these turn out to be!
Have a look at "Your Name Here" on the internet archive... It's designed to be generic, and takes some great cheap shots at the advertising industry
. ph p?collection=prelinger&collectionid=01681
http://www.archive.org/movies/movies-details-db
there's some indication that they're reselling ads that were junked: ... so the ad went straight into the drawer.
But some board members frowned on the
ad
Heck, they're recycling *new* adverts for different regions of the world! When a firm can't be bothered to shoot a new advert for a product, no matter how cheap the first advert was, they just chuck some voice-over actors into an overdub studio for a different world market. It really instills confidence in the product and respect for their intended audience.
And in some cases, adverts are recycled from pop-culture, current affairs, and famous events. Tons of adverts barely even feature the product in question. Should anyone remember the product the old advert was selling, there could be some interesting humourous cut-and-paste opportunities in the offing....
Nice subscription you have to a media frenzy there. Whatever happened to "Innocent until proven guilty". Morons like you who don't THINK shit me.
Now even the commercials are in reruns.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
Frankly it makes sense. How many ads anymore about "selling a lifestyle" and associating your product with it, instead of "why this particular product is great!" Sure they might be hollow and not about a given product, but based on their prevalence, they must work.
mod this asshat down, all he did was cut and paste half the article here, why is this insightful????
...but with webpages. I remove all references to the original company, but have missed a few meta tags from time to time.
The number of ads that I've seen in Britain with badly dubbed over voices with lip-synching that's totally screwed has risen dramatically over the last five years.
In most cases, the lip-synching is slightly out, meaning that the ad was probably filmed in English but originally shot overseas somewhere (US, Australia, etc). Companies that have done this include Coca-Cola for Diet Coke, Just For Men hair colourant and, ridiculously, a hair product for women that dubbed out Andie McDowell's beautiful southern drawl with that of another American!
However, on at least one ad i've seen the lip-synching was totally screwed and there was no correlation between the lip movements and the words being spoken - clearly, this was an ad that was shot in another European country and in another language but with English voices dubbed over the top. Frankly, I felt that it was so tacky that it made the product look bad.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I would be enranged if a different company began using my TV ad. My customers associate the original ad with my company. It doesn't matter if you remove my name and logo, the whole ad represents me.
I remember "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" or "Where's the beef?" or "Please don't squeeze the Sharman." Swap out the product or company name and people still remember the original.
I'm surprised (apparently?) that ad agencies own the advertisements being produced.
"Hands that do dishes can be as soft as your face, with Mild Green.. Carling Black Label!"
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
Nowhere in the article nor on their site did I see anything about the actors getting additional residuals. Even in major cities, most "working actors" are barely making it, working day jobs in IT or restaurants or wherever, and occassionally getting a commercial for scale.
Wonder if the kung-fu guys knew their work was being reused years later. Whatever the original actors' contract said, it's certainly unfair to "re-purpose" these ads for additional advertisers without additional compensation. Wonder what SAG or AFTRA would have to say.
innocent? sure sure ... there there go michael free michael... fsckoff
At least it failed - no self-respecting Aussie drinks Fosters, then or now:)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
...in Soviet Russia, the commercials recycle YOU! ...yeah.
'If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.'
Here's hoping they start advertising English lessons.
Interracial furry porn!
Have anyone seen that new ad with a frogs in a row, down in the swamp, advertising for that new dish washer?
I was thinking more along the lines of Iron Eyes Cody (The crying Indian from those Keep America Beautiful ads) walking up to the monitor to observe the shockingly garish XP desktop theme. A tear runs silently down his left cheek. Que ending credit: "People Start Polluting the server room, People Can Stop It"
I wonder who the James Brown of commercials is because he will be making some big bucks. The hardest working man in TV advertising...
MY SECRET DIARIES
Stupid advert for a dumb websyste... Politrix - get a fscking clue...
very sad
*This ad courtesy of Toyota*
Rock!
Mama mia! Thats a spicy
enterprise server.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Quote:
Thought Equity gets agreement from any and all parties to get exclusive worldwide distribution rights, Schaff said. Thought Equity also doesn't use ads featuring actors who belong to the Screen Actors Guild.
man is machine
From a production standpoint, it might be easier to create a brand new commercial that the customer can (insert product name here) than manipulating old commercials. You could then sell it by region so that no two areas see the same ad for different products.
This is also better in that customers would see it as a 'new' commercial rather than associate it with the old product...
I can see it now... a commercial for bug spray being mophed into a commercial for hair spray.
Of course, it might cost a little more, but it coul be another niche...
Sappy slow music plays. We zoom in on two women walking along the beach.
Young woman: Mom, can I ask you a personal question?
Older woman: Sure dear, what?
Young woman: Have you ever...you know...felt LIKE USING AOL?
Older woman: Oh my goodness. Yes dear, there have been times like that, times when I wasn't feeling so fresh. That's why I always trust EARTHLINK. You see, EARTHLINK gives me back that clean feeling.
Young woman: Really mother? How does it work?
Older woman: You simply insert the EARTHLINK applicator into your CDROM DRIVE and let it cleanse and soothe your COMPUTER.
Yound woman: Wow mom, that sounds like just what I need, where can I get EARTHLINK?
Older woman: I have some right here in my purse!
(Laughter)
- JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
I've worked in video before so maybe that gives me a different perspective. I think it sounds like a good way to make a fast buck. It takes very expensive editing equipment to clean up video and audio and make it look good. I'm talking $100,000 and up - the sky's the limit there. You need video editing software too like Adobe Premier and stuff. If my friend would let me use his editing room I already would be. He's a dick about it though.
I just hope the Miller Lite fountain wrestlers get used for EVERYTHING.
(I know the deal is reusing commercials that never got used, but this is more fun)
sigs, as if you care.
if the shoe fits....
Maybe we could recruit Tux to be the new spokesman for Trojan..
For the ultimate in safety... choose Linux.
Learn something new.
For all the people who didn't read the article, but commented anyway:
This company is NOT re-using previously aired ads. They are taking ads that were filmed, but never aired, giving them a once over, then selling them. They are buying these ads off the company that filmed them. They are not ripping off other companies commercials, icons, or jingles. They are buying other companies rejects, improving them, then selling them.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
I had this thought awhile back.
Why don't we recycle adverts that havn't dated? The next and future generations of society is unaware of them unless a specific education course teaches them about ad history. Alot of people would be unaware of them and its like showing a new dog old tricks, its would still have to learn them.
Why would you waste more money on new ads when your target market has never seen a older advert that has already aired, gets its message across and does the job already. This is great.
Jonathanjk.com
Advertising agencies typically make most of their revenue as buyers and resellers of media. The "creative" tends to be a small part of the overall billing. (In fact, in the old days ad agencies didn't charge fees for their creative services *at all*, revenues were generated by purchasing blocks of media at a discount from the broadcast companies, and upselling the media to the client. The creative was a 'free' service that the agency used to provide for the right to sell the client the airtime). Today ad agencies bill at rates that are closer to traditional service companies, but: in the broadcast advertising realm, these billings still don't come close to the revenue generated from a single network media buy.
In other words: If your client is buying airtime on broadcast television -- he's probably not going to nickel and dime you on the creative.
Second -- the really *choice* old spots are owned by the companies that paid for them -- even if they never aired. If a repurposed spot costs about $10k, it means the rights to the old footage cost far less than that. I can't imagine many big companies being interested in selling their old footage for small change like that...
And if its not a big company, the spot probably sucked anyway. So my guess is while this sounds like a new groovy digital rights marketplace, its probably full of dreck.
The trick to pissing in cornflakes, is not to hit the spoon.
-Popo
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
If he had the original material that could be pretty easy (just get the the master that doesnt have captions on it) but otherwise does he just blur it out? I dunno about $50000, some of the ads i see on tv look like they were done with a camcorder on a street corner.. oh wait they were!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Why does a Simpsons quote get a +3 Informative rating?
"D'oh!" should be worth a +5 Interesting, if my calculations are correct. Fuckin' mods...
Just think all that fun packed into 30 seconds...next thing you know it they will insert random sounds, and french aliens.
What's another word for Thesaurus?
-Steve Wright
Why not pass a hat around and get enough money for a "linux" substitution in Apple's 1984 commercial? Never saw that one on TV enough anyway.
Hmm, so what about copyright issues on this? Do the companies that made the original commercials get any say in this matter? If you went through with that idea I'd imagine Apple would be pretty unhappy.
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
Like this: The Your Name Here Story
a return of "it's that big hunk of FUDGE" or worse yet "where's the beef?"
when what I should have been fearing is commercials that didn't make the cut??!!
The Your Name Here Story did the same thing years ago.
We already have form letters, form movies, and form music. Not surprising we get form commercials as well.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
Those two chicks clubbing each other in the fountain, it would be irresistable. Click on this...
People are sitting, all facing a giant TV monitor. From the back of the room, a spikey haired female runs with a hammer. She stops, throws the hammer at the monitor, and shatters the giant face keeping people down.
The ad...buy MS Longhorn.
I really hate Dan Patrick.
Does anyone remembers the MS commercial which was a spoof on the VW Golf commercial? The one where the guys are driving around find a chair on the side of the road, they pick it up but soon discover it stinks then drop it off and keep going?
In Microsoft version Gates and Steve driving around in the Golf and see a Sun server on the side of the road (thrown out as garbage) so they stop and pick it up only to realize it too stinks and they stop and drop it off and keep going. It was admittedly a funny parody.
The commercial however ends as the Golf turns a corner. I always thought a fitting end to commercial would be that as they turn the corner the car is completely obliterated by semi-truck at a high rate of speed which they evidently pulled out in front of and did not see. Then the last clip shows the inside of the cab of the truck with a penguin driving, jumping up and down wildly on the seat, while listening to Born to Wild playing at high volume.
Hot Sauce and more
Linux and Mozilla customer 5% smart cart discount
If a repurposed spot costs about $10k, it means the rights to the old footage cost far less than that. I can't imagine many big companies being interested in selling their old footage for small change like that...
Comparing $10,000 to $0 that's a large profit even if the ad is still being sold for less than it cost to make it. When a business has an unused resource if they can get any money for it there's a gain.
This isn't to say that 30 second commercials cost a lot to make. There is a very good film program at the school I go to and the students put out some very good films on a very small budget
The article was about ads that were never made public. But, then again, who pays attention to political ads the first time around? ;-)
Let's play Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I'll be Pestilence.
Dilbert: "You stole the entire idea from our competitors ad."
Ad Exec: "Ok, so I guess you do understand the creative process."
~paraphrased from the Gruntmaster 6000 episode
IANAAE (I am not an advertising executive) but I have to wonder how effective this type of advertising is. They are essentially comedy shorts that have little or nothing to do with the product, if it weren't for the tag line at the end you could "recycle" them to video as a package of skits.
As much as I hate to admit it I think that some annoying TV ads are more effective, I hate having to sit through another Jared Fogle Subway ad but when I'm looking for a quick lunch I feel less guilty about going to Subway because I know he lost a pile of weight eating it. I hate it but it works.
That being said I really do enjoy the "comedy" ads, Adcritic is sadly missed. My favorite is the one with the chick who's heading out on a date. After the guy opens the car door for her she gets in and rips a fart as he's going around to the driver's side door. When he gets in he introduces her to his friends that were in the backseat the whole time. Do you guys remember that one? Now do you remember what it was selling? Me neither.
Here, in Quebec, a group of humourists (Rock et Belles Oreilles) made a spoof of a commercial with (fake) Wayne Gretzky speaking French (so bad that we don't understant a word). They put it on the air 3 times with 3 differents companies at the end.
I think it was Ford, Travelers and a non-existing company that was given the name of the last word fake-Gretzky said: Situla gwassider
Montreal - Best city to live in!
Ever seen ads for "The Law Offices of ____"?
I've seen the same ad in different regions in the US where the only difference is the announcer who fills in the blank.
advertisement
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
The company specifically does NOT recycle commercials or pitches where any depicted actors are SAG members for this very reason.
All the more reason to get unionized if you go into that line of work.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Jules: What country you from!
Bret: What?
Jules: "What" ain't no country I know! Do they speak English in "What?"
Brett: What?
Jules: English-motherfucker-can-you-speak-it?
Free as in mason.
Us older geeks probably have fond memories of a movie from the early 80's that touched on this sort of thing. Looker, anyone? It features a company that does full body scans of actors/actresses and then uses computers to create commercials that feature the scanned actors/actresses. Besides, much like Runaway, who wouldn't want to have the futuristic weapon featured in the movie -- a gun that, with a flash of light, freezes time for its victim. The ultimate excuse for government spooks to go running around with dark sunglasses.
:)
Imagine S1M0NE 20 years ago, when she was just getting started in her career
Intelligent Life on Earth
The recent beer commercial with people falling down on each other like dominos. It's funny. I remember the commercial, but not the brand name of the beer! Still, that commercial is great.
There's a classic accident representation attorney ad that's been circulating in lots of cities for a long while. The commercial is shot in black and white, which heightens the drama. The setting is the office of an Insurance Company's legal staff where the evil insurance lawyers are discussing the details of a new claim. The attorneys are arrogantly joking about how they're going to deny the claim. One of the older lawyers finally asks "Who's their lawyer?"
Then they use the trick that makes the ad reusable. The camera cuts away to a hilarious reaction shot as the attorney's name is matter-of-factly spoken.
"James Sokolov"
All the young attorneys suddenly look up, visibly shaken. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence the camera cuts back to the older lawyer who says:
"Uh. Let's settle this thing."
I've seen the same ad many times in different cities, always with a different lawyer's name. I've seen a few different versions with different actors and dialog. I always laugh when they get to the cutaway shot.
I find that if I say "Unfrozen Caveman Attorney" at the cutaway the reaction seems even funnier.
-- thinkyhead software and media
Too bad the 9/11 terrorists didn't fly the planes into some movie studio buildings or the Redmond campus. They would have actually done something useful for the entire world.
Whoa!
Somebody get this AC some caffine.
Only the car manufacturer you are thinking of is actually... "built (Ford) tough."
^-- mark troll accordingly
Black Art's sig:
Except that under feudalism, there is a two-way obligation. Property comes with obligation, both to the lord who granted it, and to the peasants who work it. Capitalism has no such restrictions on what you do with your property, and the corporation has no obligation to the consumer comparable to the lord's obligations to his peasants. Don't insult the memory of feudalism, please.
In principio creauit Linus Linucem.
Does AC stand for Anonymous Coward, or Ann Coulter? It could be either one....
My name on /. is a subtle (or not-so-subtle depending on how intelligent you actually are) jab at the idiots on /. who think they are professional businessmen/politicians, etc... People like that well known idiot NineNine or "neocon" or Twirlipofthemists.
I'd rather see the commercials for Konami's Dance Dance Revolution get dubbed with "Aiyaiyai, I'm your MSN butterfly" or the like.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I was doing this guy I met, and he was, like, uh uh uh damn oh no. And then, like, half of his equipment was shriveled. And I was, like huh. It disrupted my sex. It was really good sex. And then I had to do it again and I had to do it fast so it wasn't as good. It's kind of a... ... bummer.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
is where they make ads that show some toy (for example a barbie doll) and have that little text saying "xxx not available".
This happens in australia, dont know about anywhere else.
You don't get a dime everyone uses a program you wrote because either you're not trying to sell your programs that way, or they're not good enough to sell that way. Microsoft, however, is definitely headed in that direction...
Aside from the typically fashionable Anti-MICROS~1 flame, this is a lot different. Someone is using your output, but in commercials, someone is using you, at least in the form of your likeness. You are being used to sell whatever. You might not have a say about whether or not the material is reused, again depending on your contract, but if your contract says you have to be paid when it is, then clearly you should get paid.
There's not enough similarity here to be worth mentioning. You choose the terms you work under; you get paid according to them. Don't whine.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
you're an idiot
"Dude, you're getting a (long pause) Big Mac."
http://use.perl.org
Or maybe the parenthetical notation didn't convey the same meaning to everyone reading. It is not unreasonable to think that the parens indicated "substitute any car name here." So, if I'm an idiot, it is only for responding to an Anonymous Coward in the first place. However, that would make you twice the idiot for responding to a response to an Anonymous Coward.
So, if I can bait you to respond again, you'll be four times the idiot. Otherwise, I'm stuck at 3 times the idiot...but only on Slashdot.
We notice. We simply don't care. That's how much ill will Microsoft has generated, troll. Those in the know simple don't care...
1) Setup Southern Computer Opportunities
2) Reuse old SCO adverts
3) Profit on money saved
4) Profit given to lawyers
5) Company goes bust
6) Repeat... !
This brings to mind the parody of the Ford commercial that everyone was using to rip on Intel when the floating point bug was discovered in the original pentiums:
At Intel, Quality is Job 0.99999997
Bah, guess you had to be there.
Ass is spelt arse, in your case.
You have also used capital F after a colon.
Oh, and some weirdo punctuation at the end.
Nice use of the Oxford comma, by the way.
Hook me up with some old Mel Farr Superstar commercials!
I was working in Ghana, West Africa for a few years in the mid/late '90s and they had refilmed the ad in a Ghanaian village, with all the men dressed in Kente robes, but kept the original Welsh male-voice choir soundtrack - the funniest thing I ever saw.
"E pur si muove!" - attributed to Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642
They're not using you. They are replaying a tape or disk that you were paid to help make. Does the costume designer or guy that built the props get paid everytime it's played? probably not. Look at all the bullshit that people have to keep track of for the entertainment industry so some bitchy little prima donnas can waste even more $$ on coke & booze.
I'd like to see a movie studio that was strictly work for hire and didn't employe any SAG bozos. They could sell at a fraction of the cost and the theaters/tv stations could keep more of the money.
I would never have believed it if I hadn't also heard this ad near Seattle, Washington. I think the lawyer is Jacoby, but I'm not positive.
What about recycling the "Tits and Ass Beer" commercial? The only thing it could be reused would be a beer named something like "Breasts and Bums".
come on.. wouldn't you really like to see the heads of the MPAA or even the RIAA perish is a big ball of flame and pile of smoking rubble? We all would. One of the MidEast's (& Europe's) gripes against the US is that we are polluting their culture. Who does this? Hollywood. They are polluting our society too, so eliminating that cesspool would be a big win for everyone.
...and I might actually want to watch it.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Getting a secret service agent to fetch you some viagra: $50
Luring an intern into the oval office: $1-lollipop
Watching her face when she sees your boner: PRICELESS...
The thing about that ad is it wasn't reallly tongue in cheek at all. Whether they admit it or not, nearly all Canadians feel that way about our neighbours to the south :P
:P
Which made it a really, really great ad, thay sold tons of merchadise as well, everything from mugs to shirts with the "Great Canadian Speel" on the back.
It was truely the most effective commercial I have seen in the past 10 years. And it probably cost them no more than 10 - 15 grand to make. Compare that to the millions they blow on superbowl commercials in the US
You know, like the dubbed foreign films where the actor works his mouth for half a minute and then the soundtrack says, "what's up?"
This reminds me of the fantastic curry-house commercials that we used to get at the local flea-pit cinimas in the UK.
The Pearl and Dean music, the ultra-crackly soundtrack and the ungainly spliced-together film snippets of "authentic" Indian scenes all merged with some cheap "Indian" music and a voiceover. Then the street-plan at the end showing where it was.
McDonalds lampooned these a few years back over here. Now they were funny.
Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules.
Keepin' cool you find, is a state of mind. The refreshing attitude! Things get hot, cool is all you got! Doin' it country cool! Masengil!
Just read an article in a Dallas magazine about a firm that does this for radio. They write a catchy jingle then partner with radio stations. The radio stations then give the client the ad for free when they purchase enough airtime. Freed's (a local furniture chain) was mentioned as using one of the canned jingles. The jingle went something like:
"at [Freed's] you can afford your dreams"
Using someone's likeness has long been protected by law in ways that using their simple work has not. Someday we'll have software that automatically recognizes an actor's position and alters them subtly so that they don't look like themselves any more, and then we'll have a whole new can of worms to deal with, but for the moment you are using the likeness of a person, and this fact must be recognized.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
In the early 1970s, the Ford Motor Company's advertising campaign proclaimed that "Ford has a better idea". ...".
During the Watergate affair (President Richard M. Nixon, Vice President Gerald R. Ford), a common joke was, "Nixon wants to remain President, but
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Basically, they block the actor's mouth or pan elsewhere when he's saying the prize amount, then they just replace it with whatever the prize amount of the wk it is.
hahaha, i didn't say i wasn't an idiot, i said you were. i probably am an idiot. shall we discuss more?
I work at an software company (I know, I know) and one of the most interesting things about it is to see how much money is wasted writing, editing, and producing software that never see the light of day because the client thinks it's too edgy, or doesn't like blue windows, or thinks the whole project is a bad idea because his sister told him so.
At the end of all this, there are hundreds of programs that are brilliantly done and well-produced - that you've never, ever seen. Many are probably edgier and more interesting than anything you've ever seen as a Apple program.
I'd be interested to see what these turn out to be!
In other words, duh: this happens in every industry. The only way to prevent this is to write open source (programs or content) because then at least anyone can judge for themselves whether it's good or not.
Nathan's blog
Adam West talking and then suddenly you hear something like Stephen Hawking saying "...beautiful Mount Rose, Minnesota..."
Fosters (or their Australian brewing subsidiary CUB) makes quite a few domestic beers. In Melbourne, their full-strength lagers are Carlton Draught, Victoria Bitter (which is really a lager), and Crown Lager (their "premium" beer), as well as small amounts of Fosters. Crown Lager, frankly, does taste quite like Fosters Lager, but they are not the same.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
when I switch on my telly and I see a big clown with the words "Burger King" written all over him, and a voice-over that drops in in the sentence "Now at *burger king* two *whoppers* for *two dollars*!", it's recycled ?
:=)
If so, maybe we should recycle some M$ commercials and replace the logo's with Tux
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
My favorite recent example is an art-school-looking commercial for a beer company. You see people falling like dominoes all over the city, which goes on for 20 seconds. Then, they fall into a bar, where the guy at the bar steps away, not falling with the masses. The idea, of course, is that this guy is an independent thinker. The narrator goes on to say that this man, like the viewer, does not drink the swill generated by your typical brewer. He asks for something more.
The funny part? The ad is for MILLER. Right, Miller, they of "Lite" beer, the originators of the genre. Basically the ad asks you not to drink their beer, as anyone who drinks good beer will laugh at that ad.
My only question is who that ad was originally made for, because it's a horrible fit. Laughed my ass off the first time I saw it.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat