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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.
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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
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.
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
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....
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.
Reminds me of that Simpsons episode in which Krusty has a generic ad in which he says "I heartily endorse this product or service".
...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
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.
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?)
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"
How is this ridiculous?
No one's talking about using long-running, successful campaigns. They're talking about using campaigns the clients have rejected, the campaigns and ads that end up on the cutting room floor (which almost happened to "where's the beef" and "I'd like to buy the world a Coke", incidentally).
This is a great, cost effective way for ad agencies to generate revenue even with the ads that don't end up used - and a good way for creative departments to use their more innovative ads that are often dismissed out of hand by clients.
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 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.
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
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!
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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."
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.
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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
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.
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!
God, that's awful. Gives you some idea what to expect from "recycled advertising", if that's the jewel in their crown.
Yes... because all the other ballet commercials I've seen are so... hilarious...
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
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.
Did you read the article? I sure hope not.
The ballet ad was the original. It was the the ballet company that decided not to use it. This guy bought it and sold it to a Vo-Tech school in Wyoming. So, they replaced the Ballet Co's ending with this:
This actually seems to fit the ad - the ad shows kids fooling around. Young kids usually need some kind of education. Then it gives a name of the school. Really quite clever - a ballet company recoups some costs for what would have been a stupid ad for them, a school which likely couldn't afford to make its own ad gets one that works fairly well.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good