I certainly understand the infomercial theory as Bill has laid out...
But to contend that clients like Pepsi and Coke are throwing their money away on "display spots" is an asinine assumption.
(By the way... I'm guessing that is a well-known term in the infomercial world, but despite a couple of decades in the business and 11 years as creative director at my own shop I have never heard the term "display spot." Thinking I must be crazy I called two Creative Director buds -- one at a BIG agency -- and they had never heard the term either. Display ads in print, sure, but never heard it in TV. But I will use it in this posting for clarity's sake.)
Simple fact is that those "display spots" do work, and can work
very well if effectively created and placed well. Coke, Pepsi, GM, and a thousand other big advertisers would not be spending
billions of dollars a year on them if they didn't.
Before we moved into a bit more high-end stuff, our little company started by doing price/product "display spots" for grocery store chains throughout the southeast. Yes, those gawd awful spots. Yes, I fully realize they are barely one click above infomercials on the advertising food chain and they certainly never "make the reel," but they enabled us to start our company and get us to where we are. But the surprising thing about those spots is that
they work. Advertise frozen pizzas at a "special price" (which might not be all that special) one week and they might sell 150 cases... as opposed to the usual 10 cases that week. I was honestly amazed to hear reports from the clients and their vendors as to how well they worked. I guess I'm a typical man... I never look at a price in the grocery store, I just put stuff in the basket... and I would never
dream of driving across town to save a nickle on a jar of pickles, but apparently plenty of people do.
As for infomercials, outside the office I consider myself an "average viewer" and can't say that I've
ever really watched more than a few minutes of one other than for the can't-look-away factor ("Wow, Chuck Norris' face sure looks tight"), and never considered buying anything from one (although I was intrigued by the Little Giant ladder, until I learned the price).
But I guess infomercials do work, or they wouldn't still be around in such mindnumbing droves.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
