“Bad blogger confessions, audience input and mayonnaise”

Okay, I’ve committed a tiny blogger sin. I missed a few deadlines over the past few weeks. It’s been a busy period but I have added some new resources to rectify the situation. I’ve finally gone mobile so now I can update and do administrative tasks without committing to being in the studio all the time. I was skeptical of my need for a laptop but now that I have it, I am a big fan…and yes it’s a Mac.

But back to blogging.

Hellmann’s mayonnaise has a promotion on right now to film your own commercial (look in the contests section). You send in a video of yourself and describe “Why you think you should be famous for your food” using a favorite recipe that uses Hellmann’s mayonnaise (of course).

The current commercial on television shows a guy in his kitchen showcasing his recipe in a low-def style. It’s involves lots of shaky camera work, out of focus shots and slightly over exposed lighting. The interesting point about this is that these are all the elements that you would expect of something shot in typical home video, but the difference is that professionals are recreating this to simulate the home-video look.

What I like is that the actor who is on screen, is the person who submitted the pitch and his genuineness comes across. This person is out here with no desire other than to show why his product is the best. Well there is probably a bit of post-modern knowledge of the fact that they are selling tiny bit of their soul to get their thirty second boiled down Warhol-esque fame, but they probably realize that they are part of someone else’s marketing machine.

No matter the initial reason, I think this type of marketing works. It connects to the audience because they are not so far separated from the person on screen. The viewer believes that what is being said is true and they buy-in.

Now, I feel that television-viewing audiences are very aware of real-reality and composed-reality. That why I think the Hellmann’s people put a tag at the end of the commercial to say if you want to star in your own commercial then log onto Hellmann’s website for more information. It reinforces that this commercial has validity and is using a real person (the real-reality) versus using that low-def style to create the home-video/shaky-cam look (composed-reality).

I remember when I was a teenager seeing a local car sales person (name forgotten) who did their own low-budget, walk around the lot and talk dead on to the camera commercials. I always thought that these were silly. I mentioned this one time to someone and they agreed, but with this caveat. They said that those commercials helped make that guy the number one car sales person in the city.

Through much of my corporate work I have used some of these principles in casting. When possible, I try to use internal staff for training and promotional work. I find that this adds validity to the final product and it is very well received internally. This positive reception by the staff usually means that they will use this product and take pride in the fact that they were part of creating it. This translates into you getting a great return on your investment versus it being shelved.

The other benefit is that the talent are the experts. Especially when you are dealing with policy-specific material. You, as the writer/creator can be specific as you can and have an on-site expert but you could still miss things that only show up in the edit room, which is way too late. What I find works when using staff as talent is to communicate to them that they are the experts. We are relying on them to know the detailed ins and outs of certain things. It also helps to mention that their peers will al be watching them so it is in their best interest to follow policy. It is a bit more pressure but they usually rise to the challenge and become company “stars”.

CM
www.cmcreative.ca