A Different Take of Advertising

FRUIT CHEWS

CHARACTERS
JASON. A young art director, working at an advertising agency in the big city.
CHASE. A young copywriter, has been partners with Jason since portfolio school. He is a bit sarcastic and speaks extremely quickly.

THE SCENE
The curtain rises on the open floor of a highrise office building in New York City. Unlike typical building floors, there are no cubicles or squared off working areas. There are big tables with storyboards and art supplies thrown randomly on them. The walls are covered in framed advertisments, with a modern look to the entire room. The room continues off stage right and there is a door to an office on the back of stage left. Jason is sitting in a chair around the table looking up at Chase who is standing next to him.

SCENE ONE
JASON
This idea sucks. It sucks bad. I mean, wow, this is bad. If we should this horrible idea to the client, we will be laughed out of the presentation.

CHASE
No! It doesn’t! Come on Jason. This is a great idea! Fruit rollers, the fruitiest snack a kid can have!


JASON
The fruitiest snack?!

CHASE
Yeah! I love fruit. Fruit is great. Strawberries. Blueberries. Blackberries. Boysenberries. What’s wrong with fruit?!

JASON
Dammit, Chase!

CHASE
More of a meat guy, huh?

JASON
...I do enjoy a good steak now and than.

CHASE
Of course you do! Who doesn’t enjoy a good steak?

JASON
With some mashed pot- Chase, we need to focus!

CHASE
Right, right. Of course. So I still don’t see what’s wrong with the line we have now.

JASON
It’s horrible! What do you think people are going to think of when they see that?

CHASE
That it is an extremely fruity snack. We’ve been over this.

JASON
No! That it’s a gay snack! No one will eat it if they think it’s a gay snack!

CHASE
It is not a gay snack! It is a fruit snack for children. Kids like fruit, right? I loved fruit as a kid. I loved baseball too. Ooo, maybe we should give the fruit snacks a baseball theme!

JASON
We cannot give these a baseball theme! The product is already out, we just need to make the line a little less suggestive!

CHASE
(Getting more and more excited)
Ok, how about the best snacks under the stars. Moon! Sun! Galaxy!

JASON
Stop refrencing the snacks to outer space!! Chase, I would say you are off today, but that would be a massive understatement. You ideas are SHIT. Not even fair smelling, rich person shit, but the driving through the meadow with the windows down and smell the cows shit!!



CHASE
You are an interesting guy Jason. But we need to focus, try to think.

JASON
What the hell is the matter with you!!

CHASE
Woah, getting a little angry there? You are just being no help to this line re-write.

(beat)

JASON
I don’t know how to deal with you! All we need to do is re-write this line! Just do it! Got milk! Where’s the beef! Think Different! Come on. These are all great lines and we need to create something that doesn't carry an air of a gay fruit snack with it!

(beat)

CHASE
Melts in your mouth, not in your hand?

JASON
(Enraged)
M&Ms!!!




CHASE
(Laughing)
No, I’m just fucking with you. Why don’t we take the line, berrytastic, and build the campaign around it. Sort of the the Drinkability campaign for Bud Light, but for kids.

JASON
I...actually like that. A lot. WHY DID IT TAKE YOU SO LONG TO SAY THAT!

CHASE
We’ve been partners how long?

JASON
7 years-

CHASE
-7 years, and when do I ever give it away for free?

Worst Mascot Ever

I loved Tony the Tiger. Love Frosted Flakes. I do love Cheetos, but I will never buy them again because of the creepiest character ever created. Why???

Superbowl Ads (Long Past Due)

So I realize that the Superbowl was a full week ago, which is the single biggest ad day of the year, and I had yet to comment on it. Besides the ads, it was a GREAT game, besides the fact that the Cards lost. I really thought they had it at the end with that 7o yard Fitz sprint.

Back to what really matters, the ads. So looking at the entire game, there were some truly great and truly horrible commercials. Cash for Gold? No place in the Superbowl. Alec Baldwin and Hulu made an impressive entry into the ad world, giving the online TV site a personality and a face.



Another commercial that did creative a lot of buzz, but didn't really deliver with the actual ad was the Miller High Life commercial. About two or so weeks before the game, a commercial for High Life came out with a warehouse worker talking about how all he would need is 1 second during the game to create a great commercial. But after watching the entire game, I did not see the ad until the very end of the fourth quarter. But at the same time, I was thinking about it during the entire game and I just happened to be drinking High Life during the game.



I loved the Bud Light and the Doritos commercials. The Drinkability commercial where the board meeting is going on and the worker suggest not buying But Light and is subsequently thrown out of the window had me in tears I was laughing so hard. And the Doritos commercial where the magic crystal ball is being thrown around did the same thing to me. I think these commercials were the funniest, but the Doritos did not work to create or improve on the image of the brand. Drinkability is an amazing positioning campaign.





I hope Hulu creates more spots on their current positioning. I loved it. Superbowl 43, mild success. I hope I get the chance one day to creative a Superbowl spot.

Back For a New Semester

So I am back again with a new round of classes. This semester I will be participating in Ad Lab, our senior advertising lab. As a class we participate in AAF's National Student Advertising Competition, which draws 120+ teams every year. Ithaca always does really well, its difficult because we are in District 2 which is the toughest District in the country with schools such as Syracuse, NYC, Baruch and approximately 20 other schools in the area.

This year, the client is The Century Council, which are the distilleries against drinking. Ridiculous, I know. And with a smaller client, its a smaller budget of only $10m. But it should be a great semester, as I am in the creative dept and I want to be the Creative Director next year.

So all we have really worked on this far in the creative dept was choosing our agency name, and I think we settled on "Bento", which is a Japanese lunch that includes everything in it. So the idea we are going with is we are bringing everything together. I have a few ideas for the logo, and I'm pretty sure we are just going to go with a text treatment or custom font.

Here's what I have so far.

This will the first post of many for this semester. So enjoy, and as usual, any critiques are welcome.