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Filed under: Web Video •

Local television commercials don’t all have to be bad

There was a post on Autoblog recently about a Cincinnati Ohio area Kia dealer’s commercial spot. It uses a special edition of Kia’s little sport utility, the Kia Soul, that adds a bit more pizzazz to an already funky vehicle. The dealership, Jeff Wyler Kia, has produced an equally funky spot advertising Kia in general and their dealership chain in particular. It got me thinking that local commercials don’t have to all be loud, ugly and annoying.

While the Jeff Wyler commercial is a bit loud, it’s loud in the right kind of way: there’s an automobile cutting donuts in a parking lot. Tires squeal and loudness happens. But local commercials often are loud for the wrong reasons. I recently posted about a commercial for a local electronics retailer that is visually loud using just about every annoying Livetype-like font trick in the book:

Those type of spots are all too common as we’ve seen them airing on local cable stations around the country. But a local commercial doesn’t have to be audible loud or visually loud to be bad. There’s a series airing in my market for a Chevrolet dealership that looks as if they put as little time, thought and rehearsal into the concept and production as they could to actually get a spot on the air:

There’s many more where that one came from. Then you’ve got the stereotypical local commercial, say for a mattress salesman, that uses an underdressed business owner, a chainsaw and the owner’s kid all trying to get customers into the store:

Of course this could go on and on and on.

To end on a more positive local spot, I had the opportunity to edit a local auto service commercial earlier in the year. When I saw the booking I cringed at first as I had visions of some of the above messes going through my head. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the storyboards for the project, saw they were shooting RED and saw they were actually using a good director who had directed commercial spots before. The spot was not a huge budget (but obviously more than the local cable franchise would have charged to shoot and edit) but I think the result turned out nice and we produced a spot that’s head and shoulders above what is expected of local auto service spots. It’s loud but in the same way the Jeff Wyler Kia spots are loud. Loud in a good way:

We can only hope for more Granny Burnout / Gone in 30 Seconds-type spots in 2010 and less of all the others.

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Hi Scott,
I don’t have cable TV anymore, just watching things online, but I remember visiting Seattle for a job a few years ago and being impressed with the local spots.  I’m surprised being in LA how bad the local spots tend to be, especially with a large number of filmmakers here.
Thanks for the article,
-Graham

Posted by Graham Futerfas  on  12/30  at  04:49 PM

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Local TV spots usually aren’t limited by the producer’s creativity, but more by the client’s and sales guys conservatism.

Posted by DanConklin  on  01/02  at  10:08 AM

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There is a big difference about those spots.
The good ones (where there was clearly much more money to spend) are commercials made to show a brand/business. The ugly ones are commercials to show sales and are limited to a few days on air.
I’ve done lot’s of those crappy commercials simply because for the amount I was being paid I wouldn’t spend more than 5 hours working on it.

Posted by Ivan Oliveira  on  01/04  at  06:04 AM

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Scott makes some good points!  But I think some other reasons the local commercials are so crappy are that they normally:

1) Have a one-person crew
2) Their equipment is usually a camera/tripod and simple light kit.  (no large jibs, or grip tools to mount a camera inside/outside a moving car)
3) Have limited budget to pay actors, extras
4) Have limited time to schedule long shoots with multiple takes
5) Rarely have the time to write a proper storyboard

Honestly, I think the biggest reason that local spots look crappy is that the salesperson wants to production process to go as quickly and cheaply as possible.  They’re worried that if they ask too much of the client, they may jeopardize their buy.

Still a great article though Scott.  Thanks for taking the time to write it.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  01/16  at  12:28 PM

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