I could get myself into trouble. But this is where I’ve found an example of when “Award Winning” commercials are probably not the best advertising. I don’t like to pick on individuals, but I found this website… http://flyingbrickradio.com/spots.html.
Now I got worried when I saw…
“At Flying Brick Radio, we make the kind of funny radio commercials your uncle insists on describing at Thanksgiving dinner. Writing and producing funny radio campaigns is our specialty.”
As I’ve said before, “funny” should not be the objective of the commercial. “Compelling” or “effective” would be much nicer.
But after looking at their list of awards I thought I might be in for a treat.
Fly Brick Radio do have some excellent ideas… but I have lots of criticisms. OK. I know, it’s easy to sit here and throw bricks, but if you lay your creative work bear by putting it up on a website, be prepared for it! One problem seems to be, they have to fit their ideas into the US “standard” spot length of 60 seconds.
Have a listen to the Flying Lube one. To start with a great idea, and use of eidetic experience. But it just goes on too long… it’s at most a 40 second idea! And it even drizzles off at the end. Shame… no punchline, or strong resolving… just a long music tail.
Operation Lifesaver “Common Sense” you have to struggle to keep up with it. A great example of where the creativity out weighs the message. Just too much. This is a great example of where I can here a series of 20 second spots, but they’ve put everything into 60 and drowned the idea.
Utz Potato Chips “Anchorage”… again a gem of an idea. But we spent to much time to give the joke… which in this case seems to be Alaskans are stupid. Riiiiiiiight!
My impression is that these guys are trying to be funny first, and not thinking about how to communicate an effective message.
But I could be wrong! What do you think?
rushtononradio 