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."

Comments

Makes you realize...

[TheLoneDanger]

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.

Geez

[Otter]

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....

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."

God, that's awful. Gives you some idea what to expect from "recycled advertising", if that's the jewel in their crown.

It's been done... "Your Name Here"

[neurojab]

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

http://www.archive.org/movies/movies-details-db. ph p?collection=prelinger&collectionid=01681

Recycle *Old* Ads?

[graveyardjohn]

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....

Re:Recycle *Old* Ads?

[turpie]

I'm not sure whats worse the Subway ads with the US accents or all the other imported ads that have been so obviously redubbed. At least the Subway ads are honest in cheapness.

I don't mind when the ads look expensive, but when its something stupid like two women talking about dishwashing liquid thats a different matter. How come the local transmission specialist can put more effort into his ads in a regional city of 150,000 people, than a multinational company advertising nationwide.

The funny thing about the Subway ads are that we didn't get all the early Jared ads, so the only reason we know about him is because of the SouthPark sendup. I can just picture the executives seeing Jareds exposure through SouthPark as a good reason to bring his ads out to Australia.

Actors getting paid again?

[xenoc_1]

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.

Re:international reselling

[Altima(BoB)]

...Except that a lot of the wittiest ads here wouldn't go down well with the squeamish, thing is, here in Ireland (Same goes for the UK) 90% of the ads are just as dire as American ads. It's only the few gems that ever save advertising's reputation. Same situation as America. I wouldn't mind seeing the American gems shown here, and Euro excellence shown there, but let's not pretend that Irish / British advertising doesn't suck in general. :)

I'm just imagining how popular a particular Dutch ad I once saw would be... It showed a nice family piling into their little Saab, Mom, Dad, two kids, they start the car and the radio turns on. The song that plays is the "Outhere Brothers"' "I Wanna F*ck you in the Ass." The song plays a few seconds, then the family smiles and starts to bob their heads to the beat, and they drive away enjoying the music, when the words "Want to learn English?" appear.

Of course that wouldn't work in most places, it was even banned I think, but that's the funniest ad I've seen in a while. Find it on Kazaa :D

Re:nothing new

[bakes]

I've seen a few episodes of JAG, and seen re-cycled footage from Top Gun, Hunt for Red October and Clear and Present Danger, and that is just the stuff that I recognised.

$50000?

[t_allardyce]

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!

and here I've been fearing

[dandelion_wine]

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??!!

Re:Ultimate ad secret

[hurtstotouchfire]

I'm seeing this as a brilliant opportunity for more tongue in cheek ads. There are some ads I definitly wouldn't mind seeing recycled over and over again with different companies. Plus there's the added humor value of seeing a commercial that you know for sure used to be a weight-loss commercial and hey now it's a beer commercial!

It's also beautiful in a philosophical sense, it just really shows how far our ads have drifted from the actual point of an ad, which I suppose is to say something about the product.

I think it's all going to depend on this: "The key is how many clients are small enough and isolated enough and sophisticated enough to know they are isolated and still be willing to do this?"

And also their media partners. They listed Comcast, Collegiate Images and Index stock on the home page. If they've got enough cash behind them, it's likely that the legal issues will be negotiable.

Incidentally, can anyone find a clip of that beer commercial where they're making fun of the fact that they can't actually drink beer on television?

Re:this reminds me of...

[Ralph Wiggam]

Have you seen the ads for the law firm where the insurance exec says "He got Lawyer and Laywer. Let's settle this one."? They cut away from the actor's face right before he says the firm name. That's a generic ad. They run it in every TV market with a different law firm, using the same high technology used by Kamp Krusty.

I wish I owned the company that made that ad for 20 grand and sold it to 50 law firms for 10 grand.

-B

Generic ads aren't new

[CyberSlugGump]

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.

DVD of ads

[Lord_Dweomer]

This is kind of off-topic, but I always wished I could find some of the wittier ads I've seen from Cannes and such on DVD. Someone should make a "Best of advertising" dvd. Before this gets knocked by all you anti-advertising people on here, realize that there IS a lot of good advertising out there that is entertaining, it just so happens that there's a lot more thats absolute crap.

Attorney ads have done this for years

[Slur]

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.

Re:Ultimate ad secret

[PReDiToR]

Thats unfortunate.

In the UK we quite often get to watch some lucky b'stard making a meal of a condensation covered aluminium can of the most ice cold delicious yellow lager poured into a pre-chilled glass and left in a humid room just long enough for the girl in the commercial to disrobe and offer up her body to the guy who is about to drink the beer and then take the woman....

Wait.. I had a point.. We get to see beer being drunk on TV in England.