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."
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
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!
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
Doesn't really matter, if they were paid as a work-for-hire, or were paid scale by the hour. Most likely, they were paid for the work they did, and the ad agency owns all rights to the commercial.
A similar example - I wrote a chapter for a computer book a couple of years ago, and was paid per-page for the work I did. I found out a year or so later that they (the publishing company) had re-used my chapter in a newer edition of the book (Solaris 9 cert study guide versus the Sol8 one I wrote for) . However, that was well within their right, as it was a work-for-hire and they owned all rights to what I'd produced and could do what they wanted with it.
RTFA. These are ads that were made but never used by the original client. Ergo nobody will find them familiar (except the film crew).
Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.
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
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 : )
** Voiceover? What's that? Our Subway ads in Australia have the same old yank talking. Their advertising pitch also says how many pounds some fat prick lost..... we use metric buddy, NFI what a pound is.**
obviously you do speak english there(that the yank is also speaking, even if it's different dialect).
however there's lots of shit commercials over here in finland about products like soaps, hair care & etc that have been voiceovered into speaking finnish, some very badly too.
it would hardly matter if they were subtitled instead of being dubbed, it would even have more believability if they were(iirc some do) but i guess you don't hear the subtitles to another room.
however i haven't really watched the tv in 3 weeks now..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Like this: The Your Name Here Story
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."
the number one product in the prevention of viruses and unwanted child processes!
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
Doesn't really matter, if they were paid as a work-for-hire, or were paid scale by the hour. Most likely, they were paid for the work they did, and the ad agency owns all rights to the commercial.
.00006 % of what I'm actually owed.)
Actually, it does matter. I am a former board member at SAG, and I was on the negotiating team for the last TV and Theatrical contract. I know most of the people who negotiated our Commercial contract, and I've been a member of the union for over 25 years.
Our contracts are really clear about this sort of thing. While the ad agency may own the creative rights to the commercial, if the ad was produced by a signatory agency, using union actors, the agency has to go back and renegotiate with the actors if they hope to "repurpose" the ad. Usually, this results in the actors getting a "buy out" for a certain number of cycles and markets. My mom just went through this with a commercial she did over a year ago, that the agency is bringing back next month.
This protection is one of the many benefits SAG and AFTRA members have. I used to do improv with this girl who was in an AOL commercial. I don't reacall what it was about, but it ran almost every break, nationally and on cable, a few years ago. She wasn't in the union, and did the spot as a non-union hire. She got a "buy out" from the agency . . . for 500 dollars. Had it been a SAG job, she would have made more than that for the session fee, and at least ten times that on residuals. As it ended up, that one day's worth of work really hurt her, because those geniuses at all the ad agencies immediately labled her "The AOL Girl," and wouldn't hire her for anything else.
A similar example - I wrote a chapter for a computer book a couple of years ago, and was paid per-page for the work I did. I found out a year or so later that they (the publishing company) had re-used my chapter in a newer edition of the book (Solaris 9 cert study guide versus the Sol8 one I wrote for) . However, that was well within their right, as it was a work-for-hire and they owned all rights to what I'd produced and could do what they wanted with it.
The comparison you made between writing work and SAG work is interesting, but it's really not valid. That comparison would apply more toward something the work I did on TNG. While I "created" Wesley Crusher, and my likeness is inextricably linked with him, if Paramount wants to write "The Adventures Of Wesley Crusher At Star Fleet Academy" as a series of books for kids, they can do that, and I they don't owe me a cent. They own the character the same way the company you wrote for owns your work. If they want to sell an action figure that's clearly my likeness, they have to pay me royalties on that. (But, since it's Paramount, I usually end up with
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.
It is a different situation as in most comercials, since Jared is not an actor. He is a real person who lost a ton of weight who goes around telling his story (he gets paid for speaking gigs as well). Other food companies hire actors anyway, so it makes more sense to replace their voices.